The Curious Case of Natalia Grace

This guy is a drama queen from the word go, he's ridiculous and performative and annoying and nearly makes this series unwatchable. He can't just answer a question, he has to twist his stupid face around and gesture wildly like a bad vaudeville hack. He's clearly a liar. The story is compelling but this guy is the WORST. He's oddly effeminate and cartoon-level expressive and tries to drive the narrative, and he's really kind of gross. How did the producers let him have so much leeway? If he's asked a question he doesn't want to answer he either cries like a toddler or rages out and storms off. He dresses like a 9th grader. Poor Natalia, and I feel for those other kids (the biological boys).

The story is very compelling and wild on its own, I don't understand why parts are done in a corny, early-2000s TLC reality show style. The show is so ridiculously overproduced, it can be hard to watch and take seriously.

It only gets worse with season 2. Just tell the story and don't add the sensational nonsense that cheapens it.

If you can stomach the scenes that seem like it's the umpteenth time someone delivered a line, there is still a really good story to unpack and some of the interviews are a breath of fresh air that helped me hang in there.

That's all I had to say about the show but had to add more text to meet the minimum. :/

How is it that scientists can determine the age of ancient humans from over 200,000 years ago, but no medical doctor could determine this poor girl's age.

Also, 90% of the people interviewed in this doc are despicable, foolish and/or ignorant people.

This Michael Barnett is an especially dubious character. I want to compare him to a used car salesman, but that would be insulting to the salesmen. He sure is one slimy, narcissistic, manipulative piece of garbage.

I am giving this a rating of 6 though because it's very entertaining. I'm losing time and brain cells watching it, but I can't seem to turn away.

My stars review come only for the DePaul family and Natalia's life story, in any way for the quality of the documentary.

Absolutely heartbreaking - a young woman with complex trauma presented as a villan. The documentary was much longer than it needed to be, a whole season for that buffoon of a man?? Seriously? The producers of the documentary didn't do a good job morally and ethically. The story is that of a child adopted into the US from Ukraine that went from bad to worst, she was sold by the first sdopting family, tortured and abandoned by the second, beatean and taken advantage by the 3rd and there are no legal consequeances for all this monsters living and continuing to deceive and steal and torture others. It's mind blowing! Ther's absolutly no justice in all 3 seasons. It's impossible for me to understand how this is even happening? Nobody in jail? Nobody?

She was not socilised, she had no documentsm, she was not registred to any kind of education institution, she was kep for the most part of her life as a human punching bag and credit card.

The only decent people in this entire story are the DePaul family and I'm happy she got to meet them again and they had the patience, understanding and so much love to try to make it work.

She'll have to deal with her trauma for the rest of her life and I really hope that there is a functional justice system somewhere and I'll get to read the news at some point that all this families are being held legally liable.

I watched the whole thing in a few days. This is a documentary where you root for absolutely no one, except a few (not even all) of the neighbors. The family is despicable (note: the mom capitalized on her son's autism by writing a book when he was a child that made her a TON of money and TED talks, etc).

The adopted girl/person is clearly a liar and frankly, I don't trust anything she said, the family is ridiculously unlikable, and the main interviewee, the father Michael, is awful to the point of wanting to turn it off. He's obnoxious, dishonest, hyperactive, and histrionic.

Altogether, I hope they all lose - and while that may sound unbelievably cruel if you believe one of the two narratives provided in the doc, I really believe something in the middle, and root for none of them.