''Casting JonBenet'' is a 2017

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

about the

death of JonBenét Ramsey Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

and the large impact it left behind. The film was directed by

Kitty Green Kitty Green is an Australian film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. The majority of her projects have been documentaries, while only one has been a narrative driven story. Green produced, directed, wrote, and edited the 2019 film '' ...

Synopsis

''Casting JonBenet'' documents the casting process for the re-enactments in the documentary. Various Colorado-area actors are interviewed and tested for the roles of real people involved in the case, including John and Patsy Ramsey, Burke Ramsey, John Mark Karr and Boulder police officials. During the process, the would-be actors, dressed as the individuals they are auditioning for, reveal their emotions about the case and offer their own speculations. Rather than documenting the crime, the film observes how the events have become a point of pop-cultural obsession and conspiracy.

Release

The film premiered in January at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

gained the rights to distribute ''Casting JonBenet'', and began streaming it on April 28, 2017.

Reception

''Casting JonBenet'' received positive reviews upon release. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 81%, based on 47 reviews, and an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Casting JonBenét''s unorthodox approach to its genre sets it apart in a crowded field, making for a uniquely thought-provoking true crime documentary hybrid." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it holds a rating of 74 out of 100, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * * {{Metacritic film, title=Casting JonBenet 2017 films 2017 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about psychology Documentary films about crime in the United States Documentary films about families Films produced by James Schamus Killing of JonBenét Ramsey Netflix original documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films