Critic Reviews

This isn’t really a film in search of a definitive truth – it’s a deliberate provocation to the conventional notion of truth in the age of media frenzies over salacious crime.

The mirror it holds up to its subjects — and perhaps the audience — is incredibly, sometimes painfully illuminating.

Casting JonBenét, my favorite film at this year's Sundance, shows a director in full control.

Kitty Green creates something powerful, provocative and dazzlingly original with her second feature.

When the concept really clicks, Casting JonBenet operates as a darkly entertaining look at how gossip can fuel legend to the point where truth loses its relevance.

Blending and bending genres to highlight the elusiveness of the truth, Green's avant-garde documentary presents the audience with a wealth of interviewees, each giving their own account of how the murder was reported.

Green's doc — like the case at its center — defies resolution or easy answers.

Director Kitty Green’s high-concept documentary Casting JonBenét breaks fresh ground, probing the public, rather than family members or suspects (often the same thing).

The film ends on a strangely moving theatrical exercise, as the various performers gather together on a soundstage recreation of the Ramsey home to dramatize all the major theories in tandem, creating an overlapping spectacle of speculative horror.

Whereas crime docs typically seek to offer everything that is known about a crime, Casting JonBenet proves how little we will ever understand about that night.