Having lived in Central Florida my entire life, very close to where the events of The Perfect Neighbor take place, the new documentary coming to Netflix later this month feels especially relevant. Unfolding completely through the use of law enforcement body cameras and interrogation room surveillance footage, the story unravels like a scripted thriller. Unfortunately, there’s nothing scripted about it, and the horrors captured on camera are set entirely in reality.
What is The Perfect Neighbor about?
A small town in Central Florida turns to chaos when a continuing disagreement between neighbors turns deadly.
The Perfect Neighbor review
The Perfect Neighbor is the most effective documentary of the year, largely due to its raw and unflinching depiction of a heinous crime. The term “found footage” is traditionally reserved for the horror genre. Movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity use the style of filmmaking to add a layer of reality to their ghostly tales. While The Perfect Neighbor isn’t a horror film, the reality of its story is what makes it so frightening.
Filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir (Katrina: Come Hell and High Water) makes the incredible choice to allow the story to unfold without the assistance of a narrator or cutaway interviews and insights. The story unfolds exactly as it happened. Knowing where the story is going makes the lead-up to the tragic event all the more heart-wrenching. The signs of escalation are all there, but the limitations of the law prevent any real or meaningful police intervention until it’s too late.
At the center of the story is Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law. The law gives a person the right to use deadly force in defense of themselves or others if they reasonably believe such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. It’s not much different than self-defense laws in other states, but the statute specifies a person does not have a duty to retreat before using deadly force. The law has been used as a defense in numerous criminal cases since its implementation, and it becomes the prosecutor’s responsibility to prove the homicide was not a reasonable act of self-defense.
Gandbhir feared (correctly) that Lorincz would use the defense and immediately took action to chronicle the tragedy from its very beginning up through its criminal trial. It’s a revolutionary addition to the true crime documentary genre, changing the way that these types of important stories can be told. It’s a gripping experience in a way few documentaries are, relentless in its hold on viewers while serving as a reminder of Ajike Owens, her family, and the terrible fate inflicted upon all of them because of one woman’s reckless behavior and indescribable hatred.
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Is The Perfect Neighbor worth watching?
Few documentaries have so effectively captured their subject matter as The Perfect Neighbor. It’s an unflinching experience that feels intrusive, as if we’re seeing something that we aren’t meant to see. The choice not to utilize narration and allowing the body camera footage to tell the entire story undistorted makes The Perfect Neighbor feel entirely unbiased and uninfluenced by the filmmaking team in a way that few documentaries do. It’s a daring choice to make, especially considering Gandbhir’s personal connection to Owens.
