The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling is near the top of her FBI Academy class — sharp, self-contained, from a working-class West Virginia background she has spent years moving away from. Her instructor Jack Crawford sends her on an unusual errand: interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and convicted cannibal who ate his victims, now held in a maximum-security asylum in Baltimore. A killer called Buffalo Bill is abducting and murdering young women. Crawford believes Lecter might help.

Lecter is caged behind thick plexiglass in a sub-basement cell, isolated from the other patients, completely composed. He is more attentive to Clarice than she anticipated. He agrees to exchange psychological insights for personal information — specific, honest details about her life and her fears. He tells her nothing directly but points her toward connections already present in the case files. He also tells her, with precision she cannot yet assess: the answer is already in front of you. Look at the victims again.

Buffalo Bill's real name is Jame Gumb. He believes himself to be transsexual but was refused treatment. He is constructing a suit of female skin from women he selects for their size. His current victim is held in a pit in his basement. A timeline is running.

Lecter is transferred temporarily for a meeting with a senator whose daughter has been taken. He has hidden a handcuff key inside his mouth for months. He kills both guards with focused, practiced violence, uses one man's face as a mask over his own, and walks out in the confusion. He vanishes. Interpol finds him eventually. He is not concerned with being found.

Clarice follows a lead to a house in Belvedere, Ohio — the wrong state, according to the Bureau's assessment, which means she is alone without backup when she knocks on the door. Gumb opens it. She sees details from the case files as she steps inside. He disappears into the basement and she follows. The lights go out. He watches her in night vision as she moves through the dark with her gun raised, listening. A click of a hammer. She fires toward it. He falls.

Clarice graduates from the Academy. At the reception, her phone rings. Lecter is somewhere warm, he says. He is watching someone he describes as an old friend. He does not intend to pursue her. He has to go now. He is having an old friend for dinner. He hangs up. Clarice stares at the phone in her hand.