"The Perfect Neighbor" Proves Reality is Scarier Than Fiction

This past January, the talk of the Sundance Film Festival was Geeta Gandbhir's The Perfect Neighbor, an American documentary about the murder of Ajike Owens. Murder documentaries are dime-a-dozen, but what makes Gandbhir's film so unique is that it's told almost exclusively via raw police bodycam footage over the course of two years. The film captured the attention of millions upon its arrival to Netflix on Friday, quickly shooting to the #1 spot on the platform. So let's take a look at this brilliant, voyeuristic masterpiece and the important message it has to tell.

On July 2nd, 2023 around 9:00PM in Ocala, Florida, mother of four, Ajike Owens was shot dead by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz following a dispute about her children playing near her property. As tragic as this event was, it did not come as a shock to the neighborhood or the police, who had been dealing with tensions between the neighbors for months.

Dr. Susan Lorincz had become known as the neighborhood "Karen," calling the cops at every slight inconvenience, usually complaining about kids playing too loud across the street. Before alerting authorities, she would often call the neighborhood children horrific things and hurl racial slurs at them as they played in their front yard. The majority of children in the neighborhood were Black and would routinely get labelled the N-word by Lorincz. As a viewer, I found myself growing continually more frustrated with what I was seeing. How can a woman scream obscenities at children and not be charged with a hate crime? As it turns out, that's up to the color of the perpetrator.

On one occasion, Lorincz threw a pair of roller skates at one of Owens' children, when Owens went over to her neighbor's house to reprimand her, she found herself at the end of a shotgun barrel and was shot dead through a glass door, never making it to the hospital. Lorincz fired at Owens two minutes after making a 911 call, knowing that the police were on the way, she still decided to take the law into her own hands, ending the life of a mother of 4. All while describing herself as "the perfect neighbor."

Despite how tragic this case was, it never reached national news in the same way the murders of George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery did. Which goes to show how often things like this happen in the United States.

The Perfect Neighbor is unlike any film I've seen before. I struggle to even call it a film or a documentary. While the project is attributed to filmmaker, Geeta Gandbhir, very little directing actually happened. The Perfect Neighbor is entirely made up of police body cam footage, showing the gradual progression of neighborhood tension. It starts by showing Susan Lorincz calling the cops of her neighbors for being too loud, then again for touching her pickup truck a few weeks later, and halfway through the runtime is when the fateful night takes place. Being so rooted in reality is what gives this film so much strength, it would be one thing to watch a fiction film about a murderous neighbor, but to see it play out in real time and affect real people creates a sense of dread that I genuinely hope I never feel again. I struggle even praising this project because none of this footage was made with the intention of being a feature film, but it works so well because it shows that reality is a thousand times more cruel than fiction, especially for Black Americans. It's a documentary that will stop you dead in your tracks and never truly leave your mind.

Susan Lorincz is the perfect example of those who weaponize their white privilege. She knows that there's no threat posed to her when calling the police, but it will put her neighbors in a potentially dangerous situation. People still argue to this day about whether this was a premeditated murder or a scared woman simply "standing her ground." Everyone who knew Ajike Owens described her as a kind person who fiercely loved her children and would never resort to violence. To anyone familiar with how white on Black crime is treated in the United States, it's very obvious what happened here. Ajike Owens would still be alive today if it weren't for the color of her skin. Susan Lorincz was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison, which she will likely serve until her death.

The Perfect Neighbor is a truly one of a kind film. Not only does it show the harsh reality of racial tension in the United States, but it does so without writing a word of fiction. This is a film I have been desperate to see since Sundance. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but this was something that I, and the rest of America needs to see. It's a brilliant piece of work that proves fiction will never hold a candle to reality.

As Americans, it is our duty to make sure that what happened to Ajike Owens never goes unpunished in this country, no matter the color of the victim nor perpetrator. Let's hope that for the sake of our own neighbors, a film like The Perfect Neighbor never has to be made again.