‘The Perfect Neighbor’ review: Body cam footage with a story to tell

Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor uses body cam footage to examine a community-shattering tragedy.

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After its chaotic cold open, The Perfect Neighbor transitions into a scene so unnervingly mundane that it feels like something you might witness out of the corner of your eye while walking your dog or pulling into your driveway. A simple altercation over a few kids in an otherwise joyful Florida suburb escalates with the speed and inevitability of a lightning storm. In seconds, tempers flare, boundaries are crossed, and tragedy becomes inevitable. Through body cam footage, security camera reels, and first-hand interviews, director Geeta Gandbhir meticulously reconstructs these moments, transforming them into a harrowing portrait of a fractured community grappling with the rippling consequences of a single, horrific choice.

The catalyst for all this disruption is Susan, the titular “perfect neighbor” whose veneer of suburban propriety masks an underlying cocktail of fear, privilege, and entitlement. Played out in heartbreaking detail through the body cam footage, Susan embodies the kind of “Karen” persona that’s become a cultural shorthand for the weaponization of victimhood. Yet Gandbhir resists reducing Susan to a caricature, opting instead to explore the social and psychological underpinnings of her actions. A pivotal moment comes when Susan is shown justifying her behavior to the police, her trembling voice laced with indignation and self-pity. It’s an excruciating scene—not because it elicits sympathy, but because it forces us to confront how normalized this type of behavior has become.

Gandbhir’s direction is razor-sharp, knowing exactly when to show and when to let the silences speak volumes. One particularly haunting sequence juxtaposes the body cam footage of officers arriving at the scene with an overhead drone shot of the neighborhood, its pristine lawns and symmetrical cul-de-sacs suddenly feeling claustrophobic and suffocating. The juxtaposition of these visuals underscores the tension between appearance and reality. How a community that looks so peaceful on the surface can harbor so much unspoken animosity beneath. It’s a visual metaphor that lingers, much like the film itself.

The documentary excels at peeling back the layers of this “Stand Your Ground” case to expose the societal fissures underneath. Gandbhir is unflinching in her exploration of how implicit bias, systemic inequalities, and fear of the “other” collide in moments like these. The film’s restraint is its greatest strength. It doesn’t need to spell out its commentary because the footage itself says it all. Susan’s actions—and the way they’re handled by law enforcement—are presented with a quiet, chilling clarity.

But it’s not just Susan’s persona that sticks with you. The doc thoughtfully weaves in the lives of those affected by her actions, giving voice to a grieving family that’s left to navigate a justice system seemingly built to protect people like Susan and only them. Their pain is palpable, their words searing in their simplicity. In one particularly gut-wrenching scene, a family member stands in a crowd, recounting the moments leading up to the shooting with a calmness that feels like a mask for unimaginable grief. Gandbhir doesn’t sensationalize these moments. She lets them unfold naturally, trusting the audience to feel their weight.

For all its tension, The Perfect Neighbor also knows how to find humanity in the darkness. There are moments of connection and resilience—neighbors coming together, voices refusing to be silenced—that offer glimmers of hope. These moments prevent the film from descending into trauma dumping, instead framing this tragedy as a call to action. Gandbhir’s essentially asking the audience to reflect on the prevailing circumstances that too often allow these shootings to happen in the first place.

The film’s structure borrows some of the rhythms of a typical “Netflix true-crime docuseries,” particularly in its opening moments, but it quickly transcends those comparisons. By the ten-minute mark, it’s clear this is something deeper, more intentional and raw. It trades sensationalism for substance, pulling you into an emotional and thought-provoking exploration of community accountability.

Gandbhir uses the lens of one neighborhood to magnify a national issue, turning a simple story into an indictment of the social contracts we too often take for granted. It’s not just Susan under scrutiny, it’s all of us, forced to confront the biases and fears we carry into our daily lives. As you might expect, it doesn’t provide “perfect” justice (such as thing likely doesn’t exist), but it does leave you with the undeniable sense that something needs to change and could change. And in the case of The Perfect Neighbor, the first step is daring to review the footage.

The Perfect Neighbor is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Netflix. Read more articles by Jon Negroni here.