NOTE: This article contains spoilers. Read at your own risk!
Netflix new series, Unbelievable, has been one of the best crime dramas that have been released in 2019. The series took a unique approach that is rare in a crime drama. This eight-episode series was inspired by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 article from ProPublica and The Marshall Project titled “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”. The series focuses on victims’ stories rather than the preparator’s story and how the victims are subjected to an unreliable criminal justice system.
This series follows a teenage girl named Marie (Kaitlyn Dever) who is raped in her own home in Washington and reports it to the police, but the detectives assigned to her case and her family believe that she is lying. Marie is then charged with filing a false police report and the case is closed. A few years later, two female detectives, by the name of Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) and Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever), begin searching for a predator who is sexually assaulting women, including Marie.
When creating Netflix’s most powerful series, the creator and director, Susannah Grant was compelled to stay as close to the real story as possible while respecting the privacy of the survivors.
Grant spoke to Entertainment Weekly and explained that it was necessary to change the details when translating a real-life case into television.
“…We were very conscious from the get-go about respecting the privacy of everybody involved as much as possible. Ken and T. had changed the names of all the women who were survivors of this rapist, so we went further and changed a lot of identifying features about them because there’s no reason to let this enter their world in a way they don’t want it to. We also decided to change the names of everybody – I didn’t think it compromised our storytelling at all to say this is inspired by true events rather than shine a light on private individuals who made what they think now are very bad mistakes…” Grant said.
The series, like most crime dramas, focuses on the importance of finding the bad guy. However, this series also emphasizes the importance of truly hearing and understanding the victims. Unbelievable demonstrates that it should be more than justice being served. Women should have the chance to find some peace within herself by having the right people, family or law enforcement, fight for her and listen to her.