Reel Review: Good American Family is A Disappointing Watch

Good American Family is a harrowing true story about a couple who adopts who they believe is an 8-year-old girl with a rare form of dwarfism, but different things arise as the girl lives with them. The first scene of the show captures your attention, but the show got disappointing as it went on, though.

Although interesting, this show’s conflicting perspectives—first Kristine’s, then Natalia Grace’s—made me lose interest in it. While the varied perspectives were theoretically interesting, they ultimately didn’t enhance the narrative.

This show was confusing to watch because it was almost making a case for Kristine and why she abandoned her child. It felt inappropriate to sympathize with Kristine after knowing she was found guilty in the case. It just felt strange to have to wait for multiple episodes to pass to hear the other side of the story. It’s off-putting that early episodes favor Kristine’s perspective, considering her guilty verdict, especially for viewers unfamiliar with the case.

Parts of this show did help the viewing experience. The acting in this show is very good. It was interesting to see Ellen Pompeo portray someone other than Meredith Grey, but she did incredible in this show and it was a great re-introduction into other TV shows for her. Mark Duplass was also amazing. He was strong from the start and he helped the rest of the cast in every scene he was in.

Imogen Faith Reid was also very strong in such an intense story and setting, she was a great casting because as a 26-year-old they didn’t need to cast a child, but Reid is so compelling as a kid and did a great job in the role. Her portrayal of Natalia Grace was so believable and incredible that I occasionally had to pause while watching her on screen. She doesn’t have many acting credits to her name, so she was very impressive throughout the series.

While this show wasn’t the best watch for me, it was a compelling story about a horrifying experience that would allow for true crime enthusiasts to enjoy, at times.

It would have been better of a show had the audience figured out sooner that we were getting different views of the situation. It would have been more compelling to have the story be told from Kristine’s POV on episode 1 maybe and Natalia Grace on episode 2, but waiting for four episodes in to get the account of the person who, according to court records, was the victim in this whole saga.

Good American Family is now streaming on Hulu.