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- HBO
- Jun 28, 2020
- HBO
- Jun 28, 2020
Summary The Liz Garbus-directed six-part documentary series based on Michelle McNamara's nonfction book about her search for the Golden State Killer features interviews with investigators, survivors and family of the killer as well as original recordings and archival footage.
- HBO
- Jun 28, 2020
- HBO
- Jun 28, 2020
Summary The Liz Garbus-directed six-part documentary series based on Michelle McNamara's nonfction book about her search for the Golden State Killer features interviews with investigators, survivors and family of the killer as well as original recordings and archival footage.
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
80
91% Positive
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
9% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 22 Critic Reviews
80
91% Positive
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
9% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
While authors have produced plenty of genuinely literary true-crime books since Capote published his celebrated 1966 “nonfiction novel,” the true-crime docuseries format has been far less blessed with artful standouts. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which bears the same title as McNamara’s posthumously published 2018 book of the same title, proves that it can be done. ... Garbus doesn’t so much re-create as expand on the twilight potency of McNamara’s book. ... Six sensitive, intelligent hours.
The series is a fitting companion to McNamara's bestseller, but it's also a sprawling meditation on loss — loss of life, loss of the person you used to be — and of the secrets that haunt us. ... The power of her work, and of the series that is her legacy, is that Michelle McNamara helped forge a path for survivors — including her own family — to walk into the light. To speak, at last, and shatter the silence.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 25 User Ratings
6.7
56% Positive
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
28% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
16% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 25 User Ratings
6.7
56% Positive
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
28% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
16% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
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How Garbus balances these intersecting narratives—the victims, the author, the world of true crime—is what elevates “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” a series that keeps its human core in a way that true crime offerings often don’t.
Using the classy kind of re-enactments that utilize evocative shots of important objects rather than non-union actors, Garbus shoots much of I’ll Be Gone In The Dark essentially in the first-person, putting viewers into McNamara’s sleepless, paranoid mindset. And yet, she remains an elusive character.
“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” is for the most part a well-executed juggling act as well as a thoughtful examination of the criminal justice system and its flaws, but sometimes the celebration of McNamara throws matters off balance, and the focus on where her obsessive nature would lead takes a little time to make sense. Is her book deadline, for instance, of any great significance given the gravity of the cases she’s writing about? Not really. But have patience.
If the aspects of the story pertaining to the Golden State Killer feel, here, the stuff of formula — one imagines the ideal delivery system to be McNamara’s book — the story of McNamara herself is told with crisp elegance. ... McNamara died before she could see justice in a case she advanced hugely, but, for a moment, she seemed to hold death in her hands. That this documentary attempts no such grandeur, seeking to explicate without ever cracking its case, is the mark of its conditional but real success.
In line with the autobiographical bent of the source material, I'll Be Gone in the Dark is as much an extended eulogy of McNamara as it is a recounting of the Golden State Killer case. These two modes of the six-hour docuseries finally find a shared theme in shattered domestic peace very late in the series, but McNamara, as she's depicted here by Garbus and her team, isn't dynamic enough as a traditional screen "character" to hold such sustained interest. What should be a bingeable mystery feels too often like an indulgent slog.
