There is a line about an hour and 30 minutes into HBO’s Paterno when someone asks Patriot News reporter Sarah Ganim’s character an important question: “A crime against children happened. Why are we talking about Joe Paterno?”
Throughout the film I found myself wanting to rewind and physically clock the amount of time director Barry Levinson spent covering the indescribable pain and agony felt by the victims of Jerry Sandusky. To me, it felt like subplot—a line of context forced into a sweeping narrative about a man wrestling with his past and present. Hence, the name Paterno.