Casting Jonbenet
Year: 2017
Director: Kitty Green
Starring: Hannah Cagwin, Jerry Cortese, Amy Dowd, Ryan Haskell & Gary J. Neuger
Runtime: 80 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 29/06/23
Director: Kitty Green
Starring: Hannah Cagwin, Jerry Cortese, Amy Dowd, Ryan Haskell & Gary J. Neuger
Runtime: 80 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 29/06/23
The murder of Jonbenet Ramsey in 1996 was one that shook America to its core. A promising child star found sexually abused and strangled to death in the cellar of her family’s Colorado home the day after Christmas. A murder that to this day has never been solved due to crime scene mismanagement.
Everyone has their theories and it’s easy to understand why so many people gravitate towards the case. But Netflix’s 2017 documentary, Casting Jonbenet, approaches the unsolved murder in an entirely original, and slightly unorthodox way.
Casting Jonbenet documents the casting process for a dramatic recreation of the night of Jonbenet’s disappearance. Showcasing a range of applicants for the role of Jonbenet, her mother Patsy, father John, and brother Burke, and other key figures in the mystery.
These applicants recount the effect the murder had on their lives, what they think happened, and how they get in the mindset of portraying their characters.
Everyone has their theories and it’s easy to understand why so many people gravitate towards the case. But Netflix’s 2017 documentary, Casting Jonbenet, approaches the unsolved murder in an entirely original, and slightly unorthodox way.
Casting Jonbenet documents the casting process for a dramatic recreation of the night of Jonbenet’s disappearance. Showcasing a range of applicants for the role of Jonbenet, her mother Patsy, father John, and brother Burke, and other key figures in the mystery.
These applicants recount the effect the murder had on their lives, what they think happened, and how they get in the mindset of portraying their characters.
It’s tough to tell whether Casting Jonbenet can truly be classified as a documentary, because whilst it is essentially a making of about the reconstruction, it provides next to no information about the murder itself (assuming you already know the case inside and out), and all of the interviews from the cast are pretty much entirely speculation. There’s little grounding in fact for anything it tells you in relation to the actual murder, or how it could have happened, and so combined with the reconstructive nature it doesn’t really feel like a documentary.
The recreations are well shot and acted for the most part, and the final shot which presents multiple recreations of various theories playing out at the same time on the same set is visually very interesting. But these attempts at making the film interesting can’t make up for the lack of real investigative research into the case.
Casting Jonbenet is an interesting experiment, but I’d say it hardly qualifies as a documentary as a result. There are no experts, nobody that was involved with the case, and no evidence to support any claims. It’s just random actors spitballing ideas and then acting them out. It’s also too inaccessible for people, like me, who aren’t overly familiar with the case. Unless the murder of Jonbenet Ramsey is your area of expertise, I’d give it a miss.
The recreations are well shot and acted for the most part, and the final shot which presents multiple recreations of various theories playing out at the same time on the same set is visually very interesting. But these attempts at making the film interesting can’t make up for the lack of real investigative research into the case.
Casting Jonbenet is an interesting experiment, but I’d say it hardly qualifies as a documentary as a result. There are no experts, nobody that was involved with the case, and no evidence to support any claims. It’s just random actors spitballing ideas and then acting them out. It’s also too inaccessible for people, like me, who aren’t overly familiar with the case. Unless the murder of Jonbenet Ramsey is your area of expertise, I’d give it a miss.