Netflix feeds true crime to their subscribers like a mother feeding baby birds. There’s a new show a week, most of the time stretching one big question into a 3 hour time waster. My great hope is that those baby birds, ready for the next binge, start eating The Perfect Neighbor, only to REALLY see how that cheap shock title is hiding an incredible documentary, and one of 2025’s best films, inside of it. Move over Poop Cruise, Geeta Gandbhir is the True Crime Queen now.
Gandbhir’s doc takes us to Marion County, Florida. We’re in a small town, filled with working class families of all shapes, sizes, and colors…and plenty of kids. Those kids love to play on a patch of common grass and make loud noises like all kids do. No one seems to mind…except 58 year old Susan Lorincz, who rarely leaves her property, and is so scared of the noises from the neighborhood she calls the cops, early and often, to “deal with the problem,” as years (2021-2023) of bodycam footage showcase to us.
To tell the story of Ajike Owens and all the families that had to live in this community, Gandbhir uses a technique employed by ESPN 30 for 30 June 17, 1994 (also great, by the way). There’s no need for talking heads here: Gandbhir just edits the hours of 911 bodycam footage the police had for every time Susan Lorincz called the police on everyone living around her. Years of watching COPS or Rescue 911 or you know, multiple news events over the last decade, make this the perfect choice. The audience is on edge almost immediately, at first hoping this isn’t some movie about police brutality. But that uneasiness shifts to Lorincz as more and more police visits happen; multiple cops comment about how the kids are just doing what they had done themselves at 5-18 years old, and roll their eyes or even mutter under their breath about how awful this woman really is. Each new call raises the tension a little more each time, especially as Lorincz starts to realize the police will not “solve the problem” like she wants them to. This all builds to June 2, 2023, in 15 minutes of film that had me completely horrified and transfixed at what was happening onscreen. Gandbhir maintains that climactic tension until the credits start to roll, when I finally started to take regular breaths again.
The Perfect Neighbor hits so hard because of how modern its antagonist is. When most people think of a villain, they think of some monologuing, cackling egomaniac or perhaps a big violent bully. This movie’s devil is none of that: she’s frail and completely consumed by fear. Gandbhir shows how that fear can turn Susan the “victim” into the worst of them all; at least the other bad guys know they’re bad. Susan uses all the power of government and services to weaponize her fear, targeting people who are all too familiar with that type of abuse of power. It’s one layer removed racism that allows Lorincz to believe she’s the good guy in this story, and some audience members to maybe take it easy on her, cause of how scared she clearly is all the time. She’s awful, but she’s smart, knowing enough legalese to try to get others to do her dirty work. And when that doesn’t get her the results she wants? She starts researching stand-your-ground laws, and a more sinister way out of her current predicament where she never has to deal with all the horrible things she’s having done for her fear.
So sorry Netflix fans. The Perfect Neighbor isn’t some passive viewing experience. It’s VERY real, with real consequences that should make you angry, and pissed off, and want something to change, like all documentaries try to do. Though I do wish Sheriff John Bunnell came on at the end for a capper on the story and this week’s latest World’s Wildest Police Videos!