Selena Zhou

Absolutely no care went into the direction of this doc and its handling of abuse. I watched this based on the suggestion of a TV critic I trust and kept waiting for it to get less frustrating to watch. The promise of the show, as I understood from its title, was to investigate and tell the story of Natalia Grace. Instead, it perpetuates the very crime at the center of her story by taking her agency away from its telling, and instead platforming her narcissistic abuser. Bafflingly, the filmmakers seem entirely aware of the inconsistencies and unreliability of his narration, and yet give him all the air time to deflect and ramble, undisputed, for six hours. We get what amounts to collectively, maybe 15 minutes of old interview footage with Natalia. Furthermore, the very few talking heads who do see her as who she truly is— a child with a disability who was failed by her caretakers, police, doctors, and the justice system— appear far too late into the exposition, and their voices are muddled by a whole episode about how her neighbors felt victimized because she was hungry 24/7 and looking for someone to talk to upon being abandoned by her parents. My main gripe is that the producers do not seem to be interested in interrogating any of this. They don’t seek to understand why or how any of this happened. Not just with larger societal elements like abuse or ableism, but even key questions like, why didn’t the judge allow the evidence of her true age to have any bearing on the trial? are not clearly asked or answered. They were more concerned with showing Barnett’s crocodile tears and revenge p*rn. The show ultimately reads more as reality TV than documentary and that does such a disservice to Natalia Grace and survivors everywhere.