Netflix is gearing up for the release of Casting JonBenet, a hybrid documentary from Kitty Green that revisits the infamous 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado. In the genre-bending film, Green returns to Boulder and enlists local residents to audition for key roles in the Ramsey family, capturing their attempts to get into character—and their passing thoughts on the long-passed case—while also filming re-enactments of pivotal moments from before and after Ramsey’s death. The result looks like an engrossing reconstruction of events that mixes commentary with performance, investigation with interpretation.
The film premiered to a rapturous response at the Sundance Film Festival in January, praised for its innovative and unconventional approach to the small-town mystery. Indeed, if it lives up to the hype, this could be Netflix’s newest true-crime phenomenon, a more literal approach to Making a Murderer. We’ll find out when Casting JonBenet begins streaming on April 28.
