Unbelievable
Ratings: 4.8/5
Creators: Susannah Grant, Ayelet Waldman, Michael Chabon
Executive Producer(s): Susannah Grant, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Lisa Cholodenko, Ayelet Waldman, Michael Chabon, Katie Couric, Richard Tofel, Neil Barsky, Robyn Semien, Marie Adler
Genre: True Crime, Drama
Release Date: 13th September, 2019
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Star Cast: Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, Kaitlyn Dever
Plot:
A dramatization of the 2008–2011 Washington and Colorado serial rape cases, Unbelievable follows Marie, a teenager who was charged with lying about having been raped and the two detectives who followed a twisting path to arrive at the truth.
This Netflix drama was inspired by a 2015 article by ProPublica and the Marshall Project titled ‘An unbelievable story of Rape’. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning story, reporters T Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong lays out the details of the ordeal of a woman (referred to by her middle name, Marie) who was charged with filing a false report after recanting a claim that she had been raped at knifepoint in her apartment.
Review:
The ProPublica story is wrenching from its very first sentence: “No one came to court with her that day, except her public defender.”
The article itself reveals some of the very disturbing details; It goes as- Marie grew up in foster care after an early childhood marked by neglect. The article cites a report by one expert who, after interviewing Marie for five hours, noted that she “remembers being hungry and eating dog food”, and that she had been ‘sexually and physically abused’.
By August 2008, when Marie reported her rape, she was living on her own in Lynnwood, a Seattle suburb. She told police her attacker had broken into her apartment, which had been subsidised through a program designed to help young adults transition from the foster-care system. She reported being blindfolded during the attack but believed her rapist had worn a condom.
The Netflix mini-series (8 episodes) ‘Unbelievable’ starts of hours after Marie’s rape, when she is forced to recall the attack repeatedly to male police detectives who disturbingly ended up assuming that she was faking her story. The series is gut-wrenching, keeping your eyes glued to the screen- the entire time.
‘How an investigation can become its own form of trauma’- is the heart of the story.
Much of the credit also goes to those behind the scenes. Grant, Lisa Cholodenko and Emmy-winning TV veteran Michael Dinner directs this series with astounding attention and humane touch. This blends perfectly with the writing by, among others, Grant and Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.
Unbelievable can be applauded for its eye for minute details. It’s important to note that these details are no ordinary. They are not like how every other crime series shows. There are shown flashbacks to the rape incidents and evocative illustrations of what happened to each woman. What is brilliant about this show is that it never shows anything that is disproportionate or non-essential.
The bottom line is - Unbelievable is not about finding the ‘criminal’, not chasing him the whole time. It is about the ‘victims’. It is about the value of genuinely hearing and understanding the victims.
