A Filmmaker's Review: "American Murder: The Family Next Door" (2020)

“American Murder: The Family Next Door” (2020) is one of the most famous newest documentaries on Netflix. It’s about a man who murders his wife, two baby daughters and unborn son. I think many of us actually remember hearing about this story especially if you’re like me and likes to keep up-to-date with trials if they’re in the USA and UK. Honestly, I knew what was happening in this story beforehand because, obviously, I had already heard about it. But another reason that I already knew what was happening was because the film itself was so badly made. I didn’t feel like there was any production value to the show and well, it was just a bunch of social media posts and pictures, videos etc. from Facebook. I mean, there’s not a real quality of classic documentary to it and I hope this doesn’t become a new-age documentary theme. I would appreciate it if that didn’t happen and I don’t think it is very appropriate to depict the victim as a mom who puts everything about their kids on social media. I think they were trying not to go there, but obviously they knew it would always be in the minds of the audience. Let’s have a look at why it didn’t work.

The first reason it didn’t work was because it depicts that we are supposed to be surprised that the husband did it because he had an affair. Like we haven’t heard this story a billion times before unfortunately. The husband is having an affair and wants to erase his old like to start a new one with a hot, younger girlfriend who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of him, but in the end calls him a liar. I’m not going to lie, this was so predictable that it was completely anti-climatic. I felt like the whole film tries to make him out to be this nice guy and then, turns him entirely making the audience question the motive. There really is not a question there: he killed his family because he was a terrible and deceptive human being. I mean, anyone who murders their entire family including young children and unborn children is just a terrible human being. The fact that the movie was trying to make him look like a great father and a good person was almost disturbing. Especially after people who knew this guy came out and said that the way he’s depicted is absolutely false and that he was a horrid human from the start.

Moving into the victim blaming territory now. The film tries to make it look like she was bossy and pushed him over the edge from time to time. I feel like the film made it look like a woman can’t be dominant in a straight-sex relationship and if she is, she’ll be killed by her partner. I think this is not only misleading entirely but it is also incredibly damaging to the women who are in straight-sex relationships and watch this film thinking that the same thing may happen to them. Your male partner probably won’t kill you, ladies. He only will if he is a terrible human being and not all men are terrible human beings. Hell, not even half of men are terrible human beings. Making the man look almost submissive in the relationship is incredibly harmful especially when this is completely untrue according to many sources of people who actually knew the guy.

I also think that the film makes no attempt to see this from equal sides in the sense that the outrage suggests that this man could’ve never done something like that. I think that the film fails to meet the truth that it is depicting in its attempt of showing a ‘perfect family’ that is murdered by the male in the household. I felt a little bit like it was an attempt at some radical feminism in saying that a man can depict as one thing and be something completely different. I just felt very uncomfortable with what this is showing us as a generation of young women. I would not want my daughter (if I had kids) feeling this way about a straight-sex relationship when she grows up. It could instil some deep seated hatred for men in her. It is quite damaging.