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The girl in the picture: Netflix in question tells one of the most disturbing stories the screen knew

"The Girl in the Picture", Netflix's hit docu, weaves the complex story of a young woman who was murdered and her death reveals a variety of jaw-dropping truths, and does so with a work of thought and sensitivity that seems obvious in relation to the story itself

Ben Byron Braude

14/07/2022

Thursday, 14 July 2022, 10:18 Updated: 10:28

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Trailer for Docu "The Girl in the Picture" (Netflix)

When a young woman named Tonya Hughes is on the side of the road with serious head injuries in what is suspected to be a hit-and-run accident and dies shortly after in hospital, a Pandora's box opens whose consequences no one could have imagined.

Tonya, only twenty at the time of her death, worked as a stripper in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

She is survived by a two-year-old son named Michael and a husband many years her senior named Clarence.

This is more or less the starting point of the new docu-crime film from Netflix "The Girl in the Picture", which has already managed to conquer the top of the ratings of the most watched movies on the service, and seems to leave everyone who watched it deeply shocked and running to recommend it to others Let them be shocked too.

The review in front of you contains spoilers for the movie without revealing the answer to the biggest questions.

After all, if you have not yet watched it, you might want to stop reading now.

Tonya left behind not only a son and a husband, but also many friends who worked with her at the strip club where they danced and remained broken from her tragic death.

When they try to locate Tonya's mother to inform her that her daughter has passed away, it is revealed that Tonya Hughes was not Tonya Hughes at all, but the name of a baby girl who passed away many years ago.

So who was she really and why did her husband Clarence, who behaves suspiciously all the way, never tell about it?

Not a story that will have a happy ending.

"The girl in the picture" (Photo: Netflix)

The story of Tonya's life and death spans more than three decades and involves dozens of people.

Starting with the members of the same strip club, through FBI agents, people who knew her by different names over the years, and eventually also relatives of who she really was.

Director Skye Burgman ("Kidnapped Before Their Eyes") weaves this complex story into a work of thought and especially of a seemingly self-evident sensitivity.

Especially in relation to the story itself.

It's good that Netflix, whose second name is Bing, chose to keep this story as a movie and not turn it into a crime docu-series.

Such would surely make the story repetitive and over-dramatize difficult enough events.

Although (and perhaps because) it unfolds one of the most disturbing stories you will ever hear in your life (and that's responsibly), "The Girl in the Picture" is presented to viewers in an almost classic and tie-dyed way.

It consists of interviews with the protagonists of the affair, archival material, a few reconstructions and that's it.

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Interviews, archive materials, a few reconstructions and that's it.

"The girl in the picture" (Photo: Netflix)

Let's go back a little bit more in time, to the happy eighties.

So a high school student named Sharon Marshall at a school in Forest Park, Georgia, excitedly tells her friends about her plans to become an aeronautical engineer at the most prestigious college in the area.

These plans are cut short only by the intervention of her creepy father - Warren Marshall, who at one point disappears along with his home without leaving a hint of their whereabouts.

As you guessed, Sharon and Warren of the 1980s are the same Tonya and Clarence of the 1990s.

In fact, over the two years many more names have changed.

The question is why?

From whom did they actually flee and was it possible to help them?

Tonya ended her short life that day in April 1990, but left behind Michael, her son who was handed over to the welfare authorities and later to a foster family who wanted to adopt him.

"The Girl in the Picture" also tells his story, a two-year-old boy abducted by his father and law enforcement searched for me for a long time.

This branching of the story is no less shocking, and perhaps even more so, than locating Tonya's true identity.

Together they create a mosaic of reality that is more perverse and distorted than we would like to think can really happen.

When former FBI agent Joe Fitzpatrick, a man who appears to have been exposed to some horrific stories in his career, talks about the case one can see in his eyes the depth of the shock.

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Without unnecessary sensations.

"The girl in the picture" (Photo: Netflix)

From the beginning it is clear that "The Girl in the Picture" is not a movie that will have a happy ending.

On the contrary, as we are exposed to more details in this story, it is difficult not to feel a deep nausea from the abysses to which human evil is capable of reaching.

The character of the man who initially identified himself as Clarence becomes before our eyes a villain of almost marvelous proportions, and the facts are sometimes too terrible to contain.

On the other hand, the viewers do get catharsis and full answers to the mystery that was the basis of the film, and experience some kind of closure together with the friends of 'Tonya Hughes' / 'Sharon Marshall'.

In fact, similar to the crime docu "Do not mess with cats", here too there is some encouragement from us viewers, and in general of the citizens of the world, to be a little more active and attentive to the world around us, and maybe that way on the way to doing some good deed.

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