Sundance: Tom Cruise Plot, Prison Camps in Scientology Doc ‘Going Clear’

“Going Clear,” the much-anticipated documentary about Scientology by veteran filmmaker Alex Gibney, caused a ruckus at Sundance on Sunday, resurfacing the most damaging accusations against the religion including a campaign to break up Tom Cruise’s marriage to Nicole Kidman.

Since the defection from the church in recent years by prominent members like Paul Haggis and investigative work including the book by Lawrence Wright on which the film is based, the worst of Scientology is already out there.

Also Read: Tom Cruise Admits Katie Holmes Divorced Him to Protect Suri From Scientology

Slave labor on Scientology’s Sea Org boats, members forced to “disconnect” from disobedient family members, alleged physical abuse by church leader David Miscavige, maintaining a prison camp to punish and control senior church officials — the documentary revisits all of this and more.

But that does not diminish the power of image and story-telling by Gibney to remind viewers of the insidious power of L. Ron Hubbard’s church that has long focused on Hollywood for its most enthusiastic recruiting, and which purports to be a vehicle for finding a life free of anxiety.

Gibney interviews several senior members of Scientology who have left the church in the past half-dozen years, suffering continual harassment by the church and the abandonment by family members as a result. They admit to submitting to punishment by Miscavige, who kept some of them in a private Florida prison camp where they were humiliated and physically abused for years.

Also Read: Leah Remini on Leaving Scientology: ‘My Eyes Opened’ (Video)

Those former senior church officials — in particular former Inspector General Marty Rathbun — indict Miscavige on many counts. But he indicts himself when it comes to a campaign aimed at Tom Cruise, by far the church’s most famous and important member.

Rathbun, formerly Miscavige’s top lieutenant, said that the church was determined to end Cruise’s marriage to Kidman, whose father was a psychologist and thus skeptical of Scientology teachings — and had alienated Cruise from Miscavige.

Rathbun said he hired investigators to follow Kidman and “arranged through a Scientology consigliere who physically wiretapped” Kidman’s phone. He hired experts to turn their two children away from Kidman, and arrange for Cruise to get custody.

Also Read: Lawrence Wright: Why Tom Cruise Is Most Important Scientologist Since L. Ron Hubbard

“It all went according to plan,” he said, and Cruise and Miscavige became extremely close again after the divorce in 2001. The church secretly videotaped Cruise’s “auditing” sessions, a kind of counseling within the church meant to be private. Cruise, said Rathbun, “drank the Kool-Aid.”

Then the church sought out Nazanin Boniadi — an actress now on “Homeland” — to groom her to be Cruise’s girlfriend, moving her to L.A. from Europe, sending her to the dentist to remove braces, shopping for her at Burberry.

The movie could be boiled down to two resonant figures: despite international expansion, membership in the church has dwindled to just 50,000 at this point.

And that because of its non-profit status, the church has more than $3 billion in assets, and $1.5 billion on its balance sheet.

The documentary will air on HBO.

Sundance Party Report in Pictures: Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Kellan Lutz, Jason Segel (Updating Photos)

Keanu Reeves gets Seacrest'ed by Eli Roth as Lorenza Izzo and Collen Camp enjoy the breather while speaking with TheWrap's Jeff Sneider on Saturday.
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Pure as snow: Iggy Azalea performed at Billboard's Winter Fest on Saturday night.
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Dianna Agron is in town for her drama "Zipper," with "Game of Thrones'" Lena Heady. On her first trip to Sundance, she hit Birchbox's pop-up shop to cut down on the delivery time of the subscription beauty/grooming company.
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Rashida Jones, who produced the amateur-to-professional porn documentary "Hot Girls Wanted" that debuted on Saturday afternoon at the Temple Theatre. She and the crew celebrated at the Merrell #Trailscape.
Miles Mortensen
A frequent site in Park City: cell phone charging stations. If half the money spent on parties went to solar energy research, this could be obsolete by next Sundance.
Mikey Glazer
Lori Singer and John Leguizamo celebrate the Stanley Milgram biopic "Experimenter" at the Grey Goose Blue Door on Sunday night. DJ Spider would close it down with a early 1990s hip hop dance party afterwards.
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"Flight of the Conchord's" Jemaine Clement and Sean Rad at the Tinder Arts & Cinema Centre's party for "Tig & People Places and Things" on Sunday night.
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Catherine Durickas from The SpinOffs with Catdance host Nikki Reed. The heavily promoted "feline" film event remains a head scratcher.
Roxy Manning gets the scoop on "Animals" from Mark and Jay Duplass at the Kia Supper Suite by STK on Saturday night.
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Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, and Nick Offerman form an impressive round table at the Acura studio on Saturday afternoon.
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Sarah Silverman looks overwhelmed as she ducked in off Main Street to hit Kari Feinstein's Style Lounge, which has been giving full trips (including airfare) to Aruba.
After spending the day on the press circuit, Kid Cudi and director Josh Mond goofed off at a dinner celebrating their film "James White" hosted by Sabra Hummus at Ciseros.
Michael Bezjian
Star Trek co-stars Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto hit up the same Sabra Hummus House for a cross-film kick off party celebrating indy filmmakers.
Michael Bezjian
Director Ramin Bahrani and Michael Shannon strike a pose while celebrating "99 Homes" on the opening weekend.
Michael Bezjian
Toni Collette came through the busy space housing TheWrap's Interview Studio at the Indiegogo Lounge and picked up some fuel at the Tim Hortons Cafe and Bake Shop in the space that will house Iggy Azalea's concert on Saturday night.
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She also signed in to Rock & Reilly's, which has been an industry hangout all festival. Thursday night had the densest concentration of L.A. publicists and media in one room actually paying for their own drinks.
Donald Margulies, James Ponsoldt and Jason Segel had one of the hot parties on Friday for "The End of Tour". They broke in the Grey Goose Blue Door on its first night. (Michael Loccisano)
(Michael Loccisano)
Later in the night, Nicole Kidman would party there for "Strangerland".
(Michael Loccisano)
Cool photo opp at the TR Suites. Newly minted Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez and Henry Esteve stayed at ground level on the "Vuarnet Sunglasses Lift" supported by Otterbox.
(Alexandra Wyman/AP Invision)
Ryan Hawke and Ethan Hawke at the "Ten Thousand Saints" premiere on Friday night.
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Kiana Madani, Thomas Middleditch, Gary Cole, and Jay Duplass toast "The Bronze" at the Kia Supper Suite by STK.
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Festival regular Andie McDowell arrives in one of the ubiquitous Kia Sorentos shuttling talent around town.
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Former SAG president and screen legend Ed Asner is at Sundance on the weekend of the SAG awards. He found some rare personal space with Lois Rezler at the Kia Supper Suite.
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Josh Hutcherson took a pause with Murilo Bueno at the Merrell Trailscape, where the crown jewel is the Oculus Rift.
Miles Mortensen
Ken Sunshine joined HFPA President Theo Kingma and Sunshine Sachs' Michael Samonte at the HFPA's first event at Sundance -- a party at the Sky Lodge with THR where DJ Jesse Marco got people dancing with "Remix to Ignition."
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Festival regular Kellan Lutz hit Tao late on Friday, which has Elyx as its partner this year.
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Ethan Hawke is amongst the first to tag the hood of an Acura TLX that will be auctioned off for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation after the festival.
California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom popped up on Heber at the Merrell Trailscape on Friday.
Miles Mortensen
Sean P. Means, John Cooper, Keri Putnam, and Sundance chief Robert Redford kicked off the festival at the annual Day One Press Conference on Thursday.
(Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Sundance)
Delta ran a festival shuttle in conjunction with UTA from LAX on Thursday, raffling off business class tickets to Shanghai, Paris, "anywhere in the 50 states," and "anywhere in Mexico" on board. People actually talked to their seat neighbors on the all-industry flight. The pilots hawked a script.
(Mikey Glazer)
UTA's Jeremy Barber with Delta's Ranjan Goswami, who closed down Lemonade in LAX for an industry pre-flight brunch. "Bad news, Jeremy Zimmer did not make the flight. Good news, we have his credit card and we will be buying drinks," Goswami said over the flight's P.A.
Post flight, official Sundance vehicles awaited faces like Adam Scott.
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Billboards and signage still taking shape.
(George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance)
Films looking for daylight get an early jump on poster space along Main Street.
(Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for Sundance)
Already full ... and it is not even dark on Thursday yet.
(George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance)
Meanwhile back in L.A., Francis Ford Coppola and former Academy President Sid Ganis presented Dagmar Dolby with a star on the walk of fame. Dagmar Dolby accepted for her late husband, Ray Dolby, whose name now emblazons the home of the Oscars.
(Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)