How Amanda Mustard Confronted More Than Her Pedophile Grandfather in ‘Great Photo, Lovely Life’

Part of the “how” is in the title. Within some hundreds of pictures, Mustard and the film’s animation director, Charlie Tyrell, noticed Flickinger’s habit of writing what she describes as “playful and delusional” captions on the backs of photos. Scrawled on the reverse side of an old family portrait was “Great photo, lovely life.”

“To me, it just spoke to the kind of delusion of ‘everything’s fine, look how great everything is’ which is how it felt being raised in my family,” Mustard said. As she explains in the film, religious devotion and an overall deficiency in communication gave way for Flickinger’s behavior to be known simply as “touchy feely” for years. Meanwhile, he was actively preying upon young girls–inside and outside the family–under a thin shroud of professionalism as a longtime chiropractor and piousness as a church-goer. “I had been raised normalized to it,” she said, adding that she didn’t even become totally aware of his exact crimes until production began.

At the time of the documentary, he’d already been convicted of statutory rape in 1975, and a second charge for lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor in 1992 resulting in two years in prison. Neither put an end to his predation. For Mustard, his spoken admission was personal. In a video diary, Mustard shares that she, too, is a victim of sexual assault, though it wasn’t perpetrated by Flickinger but a friend’s boyfriend who never accounted for it. “It’s the least that I can do as the granddaughter of this piece of shit,” Mustard tearfully explains in the film. It’s at once a statement of intent and a bleak reminder of how elusive justice can be in cases of sexual violence, and that getting it—in any form—is often left to those who’ve been harmed.

Though Mustard contacted many of Flickinger’s victims, most of them aren’t in the film. Bonnie Dillard—who now identifies as Grace—is one exception outside of Mustard’s family. For years, Grace was sexually abused by Flickinger at the Pennsylvania practice where she was a patient and he worked as a chiropractor. The Herds, a God-fearing husband and wife who still own the practice, claimed they weren’t entirely aware of any previous wrongdoing when they hired Flickinger, even though offenses had already taken place elsewhere in the state. In one of the many difficult-to-watch scenes, Grace revisits the clinic for the first time since she became an adult.

“It’s hard to forgive someone who doesn’t ask for forgiveness,” Grace tells the Herds. Regardless, they ask to pray with her. “[Forgiveness] is this word we all use but have very different definitions of,” Mustard told Jezebel. In the evangelical faith that my family adheres to, not forgiving is equal to the sin that was committed against you, which is insane. But it’s also a milder form of victim-blaming.”

As Flickinger’s health declines, Mustard and Debi confront him one last time with audio messages recorded by Angie and Grace. The outcome is frustrating yet, for survivors, achingly familiar. And, in a crushing conclusion, some of the fissures in the foundation of Mustard’s family only fracture further. Debi ultimately has difficulty reckoning with any responsibility for Angie’s abuse perpetrated by her father—their relationship, at times, has suffered for it.

In the end, viewers will understand that Flickinger was protected by religion, a pernicious culture of forced forgiveness, and, most complex of all, female complicity. Here, Great Photo, Lovely Life asks for more empathy. We learn Mustard’s grandmother, Salesta, was aware of what her husband was doing and largely looked on—even as her daughter, Debi, and granddaughter, Angie, became victims. Salesta’s silence in Flickinger’s abuse lingers long after the credits but Mustard thinks historical context should be considered.

“They knew each other for three months and got married and he was very manipulative,” Mustard said. But Lois, the name he insisted on calling her, remained by Flickinger’s side until finally leaving him with Debi’s support two years before her death. “I don’t know what made the name change happen because it wasn’t until she was in hospice care and my mom was writing her paperwork out for her that she piped up and said, ‘that’s not my name. My name is Salesta.’”

Since the film premiered, Mustard said she’s received hundreds of messages from viewers who see some part of their own lineage’s lore in hers. Others are more enraged by the actions of those who participated in it—even hers. The perfunctory hug Mustard gives her grandfather the last time she sees him alive, for instance, has pissed a lot of people off. Her mother and grandmother have also drawn considerable ire. But be it anger, applause, or some measure of both, all reactions, Mustard thinks, indicate a storytelling success.

“I think the misplaced anger in the comments comes from a place of trying to apply the rules of now to a time that was extremely different,” Mustard said. “It’s unrealistic to be like ‘hey grandma, hashtag me too.’”

She’s sympathetic to her audience’s eagerness to point the finger—especially at women. Simultaneously though, Mustard said she has respect for those who appeared in Great Photo, Lovely Life despite knowing they might be poorly perceived. “These are the women that were like, ‘hey we’re gonna try,’” Mustard said, specifically noting her mother.

“As much of a shitstorm as all this is, mom’s doing better than grandma, you’re doing better than mom, and your kids are going to do better than you,” Mustard tells Angie in the film’s final moments. This is ultimately the message of Great Photo, Lovely Life: When one generation finally tells of its trauma, the next one gets a little more free.