HBO’s “Leaving Neverland” is a grueling, hard-to-watch four hours of two men claiming that they were sexually abused by Michael Jackson between the ages of 7 and 14.

The film’s fulcrum is an extended explicit description — which, out of decency and respect for the victims, I refuse to relate here — of how Jackson allegedly pushed Wade Robson and James Safechuck into performing a series of sex acts as boys in the 1980s and early 1990s. They describe the many rooms in Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County — bathrooms, bedrooms, the projection booth of a private movie theater — in which these acts were said to have taken place.

A distastefully “sad” piano and two queasy cross-cutting cameras pick out the best angle from which to see and hear a story that’s mostly been treated with quiet de-sensationalization by director Dan Reed. To add to the revulsion, they relate their story in dry, flat voices with many hard, nervous swallows. You’re terrified for them as they betray their own terror. Robson and Safechuck have to mind each and every word they say, knowing the hard-line position of defense in which victims are placed by their unbelieving audience. Many will still not believe them, even after the special airs Sunday, March 3, on HBO — just weeks after the Lifetime docuseries that featured accusations of sexual abuse against another major pop star with a suspect history, the R&B singer R. Kelly.

But this is different simply because it’s Jackson, the all-surface pop auteur constantly in the spotlights of sold-out arenas and gossip mags. For a span in the ’80s and ’90s, everything he did (the Presley marriage, the chimpanzees, “Black or White,” the Pepsi fire and blanching of skin) was a major cultural item. And, at times, that prestige and his artistry clouded the accusations of molesting children — which were either settled out of court (1993) or not held up in it (2004).

What’s especially horrifying about watching “Leaving Neverland” is hearing Robson struggle with the twinned psychological effects that Jackson had on him. Robson, who takes up a good chunk of the doc’s second half, talks a lot about how much Jackson helped develop his choreographic career, from a young, freestyling Australian boy to the choreographer of some of the top pop talent of the early 2000s — working with Britney Spears, NSyncand Justin Timberlake.

Robson’s interest in dance was sparked by Jackson, whom he met in the 1980s after he won an Australian dance context for the best Jackson impersonation. “He’s the reason I dance,” Robson says. “He’s the reason I make music.” Robson, his mother and siblings moved to L.A. at Jackson’s behest, leaving their mentally ill father behind in Australia, causing rifts in the family that still have not been bridged. Robson speaks of the isolation he felt when, as he got older, he was “dumped” by Jackson in favor of another Australian boy, about the same age as Robson when he and Jackson first met. He admits a deep love for Jackson on video, even during the period in the 1990s and early 2000s when other boys were coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse at Jackson’s hands.

在四个小时,而不是一个词say ever smacks of cash-hungry opportunism. The events have clearly damaged their relationships with their wives and families, their mental health and their working life. What would they have togain,personally? When one is as overcome with guilt and mental confusion as Robson and Safechuck clearly are, money, and how much they would reap in a lawsuit, hardly enters into it. They’re still working through the paradoxical truth that Jackson had donegoodby them, materially — a great living situation in Los Angeles, hobnobbing with a parade of celebrities, a career in showbiz. The men still do not blame Jackson outright, and neither, really, does director Reed: The documentary is less focused on finger-pointing than Jackson fans or the late singer’s estate might think. It’s more focused on hearing these男人告诉告诉直到他们心里受不了tell anymore. It’s more focused on changing up the still-unfolding post-Harvey Weinstein shift in our reactions to victims’ stories of alleged abuse.

Because of that dynamic, and that of Jackson’s immense fame, this is a documentary about which most will have already formed an opinion — even if they haven’t seen any of the footage. Since “Leaving Neverland” was announcedthis year, and since its premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in late January, an intense negative backlash has formed around the film’s mere existence, spurred on by Jackson fans who still maintain that the pop singer, who died in 2009, was falsely accused of any wrongdoings.

For some, Robson’s and Safechuck’s timeliness is suspect. The two men, who say that their history of abuse and sexual relationship with Jackson began in the late’80s during Jackson’s “Bad” tour, have had to deal with accusations of opportunism, of being “too little, too late” in coming forward, of being two white men trying to recklessly slander the name of one of the most successful black pop culture icons of the 20th century.

There’s a long history of people being mangled in the press and in public for trying to tarnish Jackson’s name: Think back, for instance, to Martin Bashir’s 2003 ABC interviews with the singer, which led to outrage for delving into a man’s personal life, and which led to statements from Madonna like, “Publicly humiliating someone for your own gain will only come back to haunt you. I can assure you, all these people will be sorry. God’s going to have his revenge.”

Then there’s the Jackson estate,which is suing HBO, Reed, Robson and Safechuckfor $100 million. It states that HBO is in violation of a 1993 contract that stipulated, in exchange for receiving the rights to screen a Jackson concert, that itwould not disparage Jackson’s name in the future.

So, “Leaving Neverland” doesn’t arrive without controversy. But, because of the gains courtesy the #MeToo movement, the circumstances that greet this documentary are substantially different than those that surrounded the accusations against Jackson in 1993 and 2003.

Still, there will be doubters and dissenters.

It’s also been suggested that Robson’s and Safechuck’s accusations will tarnish Jackson’s legacy — an insinuation that,in my estimation, is a precious exaggeration. The brutal truth is that I don’t see a situation where the public will ever stop listening to Jackson’s music, even when extremely credible accounts like those in “Leaving Neverland” appear. Even after sitting throughindescribably heart-wrenching interviews with Robson, who grapples through the maddeningly mixed effect Jackson has had on his life. A grappling that has probably necessitated the telling of a lifelong lie (i.e., that he wasn’t the victim of any sort of abuse) in order to bury his awful truths. A grappling far more important than whether or not the club can still play “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”

M“Leaving Neverland”:Documentary. Directed by Dan Reed. With Wade Robson and James Safechuck. Airs Sunday, March 3,on HBO in two parts, each two hours.