Audiences aren’t done with true crime yet. The latest feature-length true crime documentary has shot straight to the global number one spot over at Netflix.
What Jennifer Did is the most popular Netflix movie at present, according to Flixpatrol’s stats. It has bumped YA film Tearsmith off the top spot, and has claimed the top position in 30 countries including the UK and US.
It’s a documentary film about a real-life case from back in 2010. Jennifer Pan phoned the police, claiming men armed with guns broke into her family home and shot her parents, demanding money.
Her mother was shot and killed, but Jennifer Pan’s father recovered from being shot.
It was originally assumed events had panned out as Pan claimed. But when the police investigated more, they found major holes in her version of events.
As the name alone suggests, this is not so much a did-they-or-didn’t-they tale as a look back at what really happened.
What Jennifer Did isn’t one of those exhaustive true crime series that drags things out over a handful of episodes. It’s less than 90 minutes long, making it ideal for a shot of true crime that’s done in half an evening.
As Decider notes: “For true crime fans who are just looking for a quick watch-in-one-night crime story, this one manages to cram in plenty of surprising details and twists into it’s relatively short running time.”
What Jennifer Did was written and directed by Jenny Popplewell, a veteran of UK TV-making. She worked on Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, Student Sex Workers and American Murder: The Family Next Door.
