The Perfect Neighbor

Documentary is a tricky thing to do, and it is easy to completely destroy a topic and argument by offering too much or too little. Sometimes, this involves heavy editorializing when simply letting the facts tell the story. The Perfect Neighbor understands this, and, being comprised almost entirely of footage from police body cams or CCTV, it manages to never lose sight of what really matters. The people and the truth.

SPOILERS: In 2023, two neighbors in Florida had been arguing for months over the way one of them perceived the behavior of the other’s children while at play. Enough calls were made to the police over a period of time that a case could have been made for abusing the response unit, but that is not the story. The story is that one day, after clearly harassing and encouraging responses from the mother and her kids, the mother had enough and knocked on her neighbor’s door. The neighbor shot her through the door, killing her. The woman was eventually charged with manslaughter, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The facts of the case as presented above are only part of what makes this extraordinary documentary soar. You get to know these people, through the footage, and watch, in something approximating real time, as each tick of the clock counts inexorably toward a horrifying climax, without once offering any commentary. Instead, the officers, victims, neighbors and the perpetrator herself, in her own words, at the time, allow you to see what transpired.

Courtesy Netflix

Florida has a law called Stand Your Ground, and because of this, there was concern whether or not the killer was going to face the justice the community felt was warranted. Yet, the moments one might recall the most are from the night of the shooting and the arrest of the killer. To watch the pain, unfold and be helpless. To know this is not a recreation or anything edited other than for time and concision, is something that may make the scenes work differently. The film makers follow this process from start to finish and it is an exceptional mode of operation.

This is something done in many short documentaries but when done with feature length work, often strains focus and begins to draw attention to itself. Here, the story and the way the footage is assembled prevents that. Yes, as a film, there is an editorial choice in terms of what gets seen, when and where. But, as much as any plea for non-violence can, this film lacks an authorial voice telling the audience what to make of what they are seeing.

Courtesy Netflix

So profound and simple, disturbing and mundane, are the actions of the killer and everyone else, that letting the footage tell the story is really the only way to do justice to the memory of the victim. Remarkably, this is a film that does not go after the police, and in seeing the footage of the way the detectives and uniformed officers handled things, you can get a sense of how frustrating the events were. Despite everything being handled by the book, things still went wrong.

There is no attempt at a cover up, and the detectives do an excellent job, as did the officers, in handling most aspects of the case. Still, a woman died. The film allows viewers to ponder this and get caught up in things the way the people were. The film is not pro police. It is anti-violence and pro talking through problems to find solutions. Not following the path of peace has consequences, and sometimes those are needless deaths. One of the year’s best documentaries.

GRADE B+

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR IS NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX