Making A Murderer

If you’re looking for something to watch while waiting at home until it’s time to go to Heathrow for your evening flight to Cape Town, nervous about your first trip to Africa, apprehensive about the eleven and a half hours in economy, worried about having to wait around Cape Town airport for your next two-hour flight to Pietermaritzburg and suddenly regretting your decision to go alone, don’t watch Making A Murderer.  Going through an airport is tense enough.  What have you forgotten?  Did you accidentally pack an incendiary device in your hand luggage?  Where is your passport?  What if the Tube train gets stuck and you miss the flight?  While Netflix bingeing can provide a welcome escape from these tedious stressors in life, Making A Murderer will only amplify them as it turns the screw episode by irresistible episode until you’re terrified ever to leave the house again.

But yes, it’s a documentary and we’ve not really covered one of them before.  This means it’s all true and about real things and doesn’t contain any attractive acting talent.  The story begins way back in the eighties and takes us right up to 2015 when the show first appeared on Netflix.  Steven Avery is at the heart of goings on, and these goings on revolve around a number of crimes he is accused of and whether he actually did them.  I can’t say more without giving away too much of the storyline’s tension – episode one draws you straight in so go and click play immediately and that will save me the time of regurgitating what happens.

Our setting is Wisconsin, so we’re talking Fargo country here.  We have the accents, which charm throughout, and we also have lots of wistful shots of various buildings relating to law enforcement covered in snow.  But there’s nothing sexy about this. In fact, the name of the county most of this took place in, Manitowoc, is perhaps one of the sexiest things in the whole series.  It’s a fun word to say and conjures up all sorts of imagery of the American wilderness.  Now let’s compare this to the name of the equivalent local government I grew up in here in the UK: Mole Valley.  Even the unsexy parts of the USA are sexier than England.

Anyway, the key point here is that this documentary will reel you in quickly and then not let you go until there’s none left.  Is it entertainment?  In a sick way, yes.  But it’s also deeply interesting and your reaction will be strong – each episode compounds the galling effect of the previous one.  Later episodes show highlights from hundreds of hours’ worth of real courtroom action, and the editing gives it such pacing that you may doubt this isn’t a very realistic drama.  Nevertheless, it’s not quite a romp to the finish, as the trials’ endlessness is hard to avoid, but luckily I have watched enough of How To Get Away With Murder to know exactly what’s going on.

Criticism has been levelled that the programme only shows one side of the story, and you won’t be able to escape wondering if you really have been given the whole picture.  Prosecution lawyer, Ken Kratz, doesn’t seem to be the type of man (or to have the type of haircut) that anyone can trust, let alone twelve people on a jury, but it is gratifying to know he was accused of sexting female clients later on.  Indeed, Kratz as a physical specimen is at the very heart of the show’s unsexiness.

But lo, we are shown the press conferences that took place after each part of the trial.  Among the journalists, there is a surprise handsome individual.  We began to refer to him as sexy journalist.  To his left and right are buck teeth, bad hair, double chins and doughy complexions.  Never have matinée idol looks seemed so out of placed.  While Ken Kratz oozes slime, this guy gives you appearance goals like you’ve never expected: silver fox hair and a jawline carved from granite.  It’s like a bit of Hollywood has been dropped into Manitowoc accidentally.

So when should you watch something so harrowing?  Save it for when you get back from the most amazing trip to South Africa, for when you need to decompress yourself from the sunshine and relaxation so that you can again reacclimatise to the cold, the wet, and the awful people getting in your way on public transport because they can’t tear their eyes away from their smartphones.  After all, at least you’re not in prison.