On Friday, Netflix began streaming a gripping new crime documentary that must be seen to be believed.
The Excellent Neighbor is informed totally by way of police bodycam footage, chronicling the occasions main as much as the tragic homicide of Ajike Owens by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz.
Watch With Us thinks The Excellent Neighbor is likely one of the greatest movies of the 12 months, and an early theatrical run even qualifies it for the Academy Awards.
We clarify the true story behind the documentary and why it's important viewing.
Netflix is likely one of the greatest streamers for watching true crime tales. With twisted tales starting from homicide and abduction to theft or fraud, the platform has sufficient docs to maintain you hooked for a very long time. Thank You! You've efficiently subscribed. Subscribe to newsletters Please enter a sound e-mail. Subscribe By signing up, […]
What Is Netflix's ‘The Excellent Neighbor' About?
On June 2, 2023, Ajike “A.J.” Owens was shot and killed by her neighbor, 58-year-old Susan Lorincz, after an altercation between Lorincz and Owens' youngsters. After the altercation, Owens knocked on Lorincz's entrance door and Lorincz fired a single shot at her by way of the door whereas her 10-year-old son was subsequent to her. Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter in 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in jail, and her use of “Stand Your Floor” was deemed unjustified.
The homicide drew nationwide consideration and put Florida's “Stand Your Floor” legal guidelines additional into query, a legislation which may simply be abused and misused, and directed at people who find themselves not posing any tangible risk. It was additionally against the law instigated by racial prejudices, as Lorincz's standing as an older white lady in a various neighborhood allowed her to use her whiteness and protect her from punishment by the police. She allegedly referred to as them quite a few instances a day to complain concerning the neighborhood's largely black, younger youngsters enjoying close to her home, but nothing was achieved to reprimand her for her bogus calls.
It's Riveting and Impactful
The Excellent Neighbor makes use of a novel documentary approach — free from narration or talking-head interviews, your complete documentary performs out by way of months of police bodycam footage recorded throughout visits to Lorincz's neighborhood after each name she made. Preferring to point out as an alternative of inform, director Geeta Gandbhir makes use of no narration and permits the true occasions of the incident to talk for themselves. This methodology making a chilling portrait of escalating violence and hatred.
Talking with the Los Angeles Instances, Gandbhir defined that she felt that the footage, in its hanging objectivity, had an immersive high quality. Thus, she wished audiences to have the ability to expertise what the group expertise. On the similar time, the footage paints a portrait of the energetic group earlier than the tragedy. Whereas we all the time see the aftermaths of these kind of horrific incidents, we not often get to see the beforehand, and The Excellent Neighbor permits the enjoyment that the neighborhood as soon as held to nonetheless exist someplace.
Is ‘The Excellent Neighbor' Value Watching?
Susan Lorincz in The Excellent Neighbor Netflix
Sure. Along with being a damning indictment of Florida's “Stand Your Ground” laws — which permit individuals to legally use lethal drive ought to they really feel threatened — The Excellent Neighbor highlights systemic biases of the American authorized system. For one, the sheer quantity of instances Lorincz referred to as the police was evidently spurious and incited by her personal racial hatred (she admitted to utilizing slurs in the direction of the youngsters, and even threw issues at them), but the police didn't really feel she was something greater than a nuisance due to her standing as an older white lady.
By means of its footage, The Excellent Neighbor lays naked the best way race is weaponized in opposition to others, and the best way the carceral state neglects threats that put individuals at risk because of instilled racial biases. It's an infuriating actuality, and watching the movie will doubtless not depart you glad however as an alternative pissed off that this preventable dying was allowed to occur. The hope is that movies like these, which exposes these injustices, will help enact change.
