Directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos
Released December 18, 2015 (TV Miniseries)
Comparisons to Serial and The Jinx are tempting when finishing a binge watch of Making a Murderer, if only because the popularity of those works played into Netflix’s decision to go for a pretty expansive 10-hour order. But the comparisons are a bit deceiving. Whereas those works largely played up the role of the storytellers in the investigation and final understanding of the guilt or innocence of their central subjects, Making of Murderer‘s Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos take a pretty comfortable backseat to the ordeal, rarely making any direct form of commentary on the trials or the players. It wasn’t until the final chapter, wherein a title card says that a group came together to discuss the Steven Avery case at the request of the filmmakers, that I can recall the authorial presence acknowledged (a far cry from Andrew Jarecki’s cameos and Sarah Koenig’s narration). The most understandable comparisons, though, would be to the Paradise Lost films, not just in tone, tenor, media, and pacing, but also in some elements of the facts about the case and, most certainly, a determination to lay the case of justice unserved. That Brandon Avery’s taped confession by way of police bullying and badgering, made all the worst by our recognition of his mental handicap, seems familiar is largely because it’s pretty close to what we saw and imaged about the interrogation of Jessie Misskelley in West Memphis 13 years earlier.
Credit, indeed, goes to the filmmakers for keying in on the parts of Steven Avery’s character that brings out his charms after our introduction to him plays up his Wisconsin redneck background. And though the film does humanize its central family figures beyond the dismissive attitude that is shared by much of the community (and, in a very telling document read aloud in court from notes taken by a defense attorney, a group who things the Averys needs to be removed from the gene pool), there are perhaps a few too many moments where they lean on the yokel-ness of it all.
The central problem here is length. By taking a kitchen sink approach in attempt to portray the intricacies of the case, the miniseries suffers from some real drags in its midsection and concluding episodes. To a large degree, the content within episodes 2 through 9 aren’t far removed from what can be found in the 2.5 hours of the first Paradise Lost. And that film had a greater feeling of anger, a stronger call to action, and a more devestating elipisis that made the arrival of its first sequel (and, even moreso, the reality of its impact a few years ago when the West Memphis Three were released) to gain insight into the post-conviction live of its subjects something of an event. Here, the final chapter, where we get to learn about appeals and personal updates to cover the eight years after the trials, feels anticlimactic. As a film, its bloated and meandering; as a call to action, it’s uninspiring, which might be even worse.
