Natural to any true crime documentary, one formulates several assumptions and attempts to find the truth as soon as possible. “What Jennifer Did” is a newly released documentary describing a crime scene of intruders shooting a young girl’s parents in their home and how she is left mortified after the occurrence. As the case unravels, the young woman no longer looks as innocent as she made herself seem. She made up several lies about herself and her role in her mother’s murder. The detective faces some difficulty when trying to discover her part in this murder because lies are made up one after another until the detective gets her caught up in her lies by asking many detailed questions.
For context, the Pans, Jennifer Pan’s parents, were perceived as controlling parents, according to Jennifer. She said that they wanted her to become a pharmacist. However, she didn’t attend college, so she faked college attendance. She pretended to such an extreme extent that her parents drove her to her made-up college classes. After four years of faking it, she fabricated a false degree to give them “proof.” As soon as the police took note of Jennifer’s bad habit of lying, they made her the number one suspect. Her web of bad lies led her to believe she had no other option except for violence to get out of the chaos she created.
As her hands were tied together onto a railing, Jennifer stated that she was incapable of doing anything, and all she did was listen to the sounds of her parents begging for their lives. Then, her statement took a turn for the worse when the police chose to interview her ex-boyfriend, Danny Wong. Their relationship was hidden from her parents even though they dated for six years. They disapproved of it and told her he wasn’t good enough for her due to his controlling life. Perceived by Jennifer that her parents enforced, she decided to live a double life to keep her secrets hidden from her parents.
This film has several twists and turns; however, some details discussed should’ve been talked about more. For example, Jennifer’s father was in an extended coma but had woken up, and he had little to no role in this film, so it would have been more impactful to hear some statements or opinions from his point of view. There was also an unmentioned brother of Jennifer’s who was not mentioned once in the film. It seems as if more details could be mentioned to expand on and make the film more exciting and insightful.
The film did a great job showcasing the deception of life and how an individual can fool everyone around them, making the audience question human nature. The film did a good job quickly transitioning from showing an innocent-like girl and her parents suffering a harmful crime to revealing the truth about how the young “innocent” woman was the clear suspect in this horrific crime and how her life was a web of lies slowly beginning to unravel.
