This film is engrossing. The acting, direction and screenplay is superb, and it deserves to be seen and it gets a high vote from me.
Natalee Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, during a high school graduation trip to Aruba, a Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.Apparently the last time any of her high school graduates saw her, was after leaving a club in Aruba in the company of 3 local males. All the actors give convincing and compelling performances especially the actress playing Natalee's mother.
The Aruba police investigated the case and that investigation was poor and likely corrupt and poisoned by local cronyism if not worse. It is a fact that the aforementioned males in the case lied about what happened, but none ever confessed in an admissable way outright criminality sufficient for a trial to take place.
The case attracted an international media frenzy, and in my view the media are responsible for hindering rather then helping the investigation with misplaced under cover attempts at detective work etc.
The actual mother of Natalee wrote the book from which this story comes, but whilst that gave me some concern about the reliability and authenticity of this movie, the basic facts as to what happened are portrayed properly in my opinion. Natalee was a first class person and had a bright future. OK so what that whilst on holiday Natalee was perhaps drunk a lot, and misbehaving as only teenagers can, and I am not surprised that the effect of her disappearance caused the mother to behave in the way she did.
The fact remains that the last people to see Natalee alive were the 3 males, who gave conflicting accounts of what happened. In that situation what inference do you draw? Whatever these males said about what happened has to be totally discounted unless corroborated by independent evidence. Therefore it begs the question: What reliable 'evidence' is there to say what truly happened?
Top notch drama, hence:
8/10
