American Murder: The Family Next Door is the latest Netflix original documentary to capture the popular imagination, and for all the wrong reasons. This film is effectively crafted along a narrative storyline by using nothing more than archive footage, and it proves to be a chilling experience from start to finish, even without the aid of a narrator.
Before you hastily add this title to your list, it should be noted that the film contains references to extreme violence against women and children, and showcases consistently haunting material throughout. There is no doubt that the events discussed in this film will remain in the back of your mind for days afterward, and whether this is a positive or negative side effect remains entirely up to the viewer.
Unknowingly, I watched this film on the day of its release, so I managed to go into my viewing entirely blind as it had not yet gained traction on social media. As a veteran of the documentary category on Netflix, I’ve personally witnessed the rapid expansion of the true crime sub-genre of films, and although these documentaries often prove to be highly informative, popularity and a greater sense of responsibility go hand-in-hand when dealing with topics as sensitive as true crime cases.
Often, the problem with this brand of filmmaking is that it can easily lack the large degree of empathy that is required of the creative team behind the project to successfully retell the story without disrespecting any individual who was involved in these crimes as a victim.
Rarely is the fragility of a person’s legacy being more prominent than when their memory is being revisited, as is the case in true crime documentaries. I feel that films within this genre too regularly fail to discuss their subject matter in an unbiased manner, so as to avoid sympathising with the perpetrator of the crime in question, thereby glorifying violence and simultaneously reducing the portrait of the victim to nothing more than someone who received a violent death.
The Family Next Door managed to approach these issues from an appropriate angle by devoting significant amounts of screen-time to the victim’s thoughts and feelings, and never let us as an audience forget that she was more than just a name in a court case.
In a sense, this film has helped to push the narrative trends of true crime documentaries towards a healthier direction, instead of encouraging the audience to acknowledge that violent crimes are more than just tragedies — they are largely motivated by cultural prejudices or misogyny, as a direct result of the society that we live in that has normalised the continued existence of these beliefs without repercussions.
It is difficult to praise a film that delves into such dark territory, although on an artistic level, the merits of The Family Next Door certainly deserve to be acknowledged. As we have witnessed in recent years, it is no easy feat to respectfully discuss and retell the events of true crime cases without leaning towards any biases that the filmmaker may have. For too long, we have been expected to digest these stories from the perspective of violence, and to sympathise with someone who took an innocent person’s life for shallow, insidious reasons.
The Family Next Door is not for everyone but if you are tired of the true crime genre and looking for a breath of fresh air, then this film will be for you. At last, the cause of these horrible situations has been identified for what it almost always is: a fatal incidence of domestic violence or a general tendency towards physical misogyny.