What Happened, Brittany Murphy?

I found parts of this to be pretty interesting and a long overdue salute to one of the most charming and underrated modern actresses but I HAVE to dock it points for the absolutely HORRENDOUS "commentary" by you tube makeup tutorial "influencers" they did NOT know Brittney or anyone associated with her. Kindly stick to people who know what they are talking about if you want your film to be taken seriously please! So tired of social media as a source of anything!! Besides I thought it was determined that she died from mold spores that had a toxic reaction in her lungs to a body already weakened by prescription drugs and excessive dieting. The addition of the mom and brother of the husband show what a con artist her husband was for sure though.

I am sorry but Brittany Murphy was not some great talent. She was a very good young comedic actress, and an attractive one at that, that Hollywood chewed up and spat out at a young age, as Hollywood has done 10,000 times.

We know how she died. She had lethal or close to lethal amount of prescription hydrocodone exacerbated by antihistamines, which can double the effect of hydrocodone. In fact persons addicted to hydrocode take antihistamines at the same time to double the opioid effect of the drug. Hydrocodone has gone from class III to class II in the US and been banned in much of Europe. Her friends had noticed that she was exhibiting a drug habit several years before this with severe loss of weight, slurring speech etc.

This woman's story is she was VERY talented. After age 30, when Hollywood tosses out most talented your women actresses, she ended up like most -- severely declining film and TV offers. All evidence is she turned to prescription opioids.

This film decides to use the techniques of the cowardly makers, rather than make direct assertions of every stupid conspiracy theory, dodge responsibility and have anonymous persons, YouTube nuts and gossip mavens make the lurid and conspiracy theory based claims. That is a cheap shot and a cowardly one at that.

Do yourself a favor and stream one of this talented person's works. That is their legacy. Their legacy is not the nonsense in this exploitive "documentary."

Using random vloggers as a means to propel the narrative offsets any credibility this mediocre film gains from its few substantive interviews. Mostly, it's just two hours of people offering unqualified opinions. It'd be easier and quicker to learn about this case via a web search. Even as a true crime fan I thought this one was a waste of time.

On the plus side there was some good photography, and the music was quite good. I was never a fan but I came away liking her a bit more after seeing this. Sadly, we hear more from airheads applying their makeup whilst vlogging than we hear about Brittany herself. A wasted effort, and and not worthy of your time unless you're a rabid fan seeking confirmation that Monjack was a bad guy.

5 stars, with two removed for the use of the vloggers.

After watching both Parts 1 and 2 (roughly a total of 2 hours), I know about as much as I did before Part 1 began. Other than a lot of speculation, some by people close to Ms. Murphy, no definitive conclusions are reached.

The documentary paints a portrait of a young actress manipulated by a domineering spouse - sad, but not a new story (see anything written about Dorothy Stratton, for example). After the end of Part 2, we are left with the same nagging questions - why did Ms. Murphy and her husband die (separately) of nearly identical causes at relatively young ages?

And the documentary contains a lot of "filler content" to stretch it to nearly 2 hours. For example, clips of online video commenters - YouTubers and online "conspiracy theorists/makeup influencers" - offers no credible insight and are nothing more than rampant speculation. These folks may be legitimate and fervent fans, but they are not experts in any known field pertaining to a murder investigation. The inclusion of those video clips was completely unnecessary.

While I did learn a little more about Ms. Murphy's childhood and personal life, the documentary never answered it's own question. "What Happened, Brittany Murphy?" Answer: the documentary director doesn't know.

I didn't know much about Brittany Murphy other than remembering that when she died I thought it was incredibly tragic because she seemed like a legitimately sweet person, a good actor, and way too young. One thing that bothered me was that they twice showed texts of list of drugs and I'm not sure if they were ACTUALLY from an autopsy report or just random lists of drugs shown for sensationalism because they really ignored the possible overdose that would be all but guaranteed if they were found in her system. And the fact that they spent so much time airing random social media conspiracy "influencers" talking while doing makeup tutorials really makes me wonder how accurate the documentary is. It definitely made it feel trashy. Maybe if people were more responsible about what they baselessly say, people like Murphy wouldn't be driven to things like eating disorders, drugs, and desperation. Her last few years were quite a tragedy.