THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
A Marion County deputy approaches a group of children in a suburban Ocala neighborhood, a familiar routine on his body camera footage.
“The Karen called,” an older boy explains. “She came out and started talking smack.”
An older White woman living alone, calling 911 about noisy children playing in the grass near her rental home. The children, nearly all of them Black. To the deputy, this rings a bell.
“Oh, I’ve been here,” he says.
Now airing on Netflix, the documentary The Perfect Neighbor is propulsive with frustration and dread, depicting a clash between neighbors that led to the fatal 2023 shooting of a mother of four. While its device of relying heavily on law enforcement body camera footage is gripping, it leaves a limited understanding of the slain woman, the neighbor who killed her, and the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law.
In June 2023, Susan Lorincz shot through her closed front door at neighbor Ajika Owens, killing the younger woman. A jury convicted Lorincz of manslaughter. She is now serving twenty-five years in prison.
Owens had banged on Lorincz’s door to confront Lorincz either about taking her son’s tablet or throwing a roller skate at the boy, footage here shows. Lorincz claimed she feared for her life—but this wasn’t the only time Lorincz had tangled with the neighbors.
Calls and interviews recorded throughout the film show Lorincz complaining repeatedly about Owens’s children and others playing on a grassy area abutting her rental home. Lorincz’s landlord didn’t own that property, however; the owner next door did and had no issue with the children playing there.
The footage presents snapshots of the neighborhood, a place where deputies and the children’s parents agree they’d rather have the kids playing in the grass than in the street or causing other trouble. An early call shows Lorincz accusing Owens of throwing a flimsy “No Trespassing” sign staked in the lawn at her. Owens denies this, and the children and other adults lobby other accusations about Lorincz, saying she uses racial slurs, blares an airhorn at them, and triggers the alarm on her truck to drive them away.
Director Geeta Gandbhir, winner of two Primetime Emmy awards (When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and By the People: The Election of Barack Obama), has said in press interviews that she knows Owens’s family, but the film doesn’t state that. Rather, she and editor Viridiana Lieberman use snippets from local news reports and Lorincz’s trial to flesh out the narrative but largely let the body camera footage speak for itself. This is wrenching, especially in moments showing first responders trying to render aid after the shooting and Owens’s ex telling their children of her death.
The footage also captures exasperation all around as deputies speak with Lorincz, the children, their parents, and each other. The deputies are inclined to let the kids be, although they ask them not to antagonize Lorincz deliberately. Privately, even they complain about her. “Did you explain to her there doesn’t need to be a call every time a kid’s in the road or in the yard?” one says to his partner.
This repetitive cycle seems to have clouded how else to respond. The footage also creates a type of tunnel vision, with the film not exploring much outside its scope. For instance, it doesn’t follow up on Lorincz repeatedly saying she’s moving or explore anything about her background. Did she really work from home? Was she assaulted earlier in her life, as she tells deputies who ask during one call why she drove into a fence? While anger and racism no doubt fueled this conflict—Lorincz is unrepentant during a nearly twenty-minute interrogation—viewers might wonder what else was at play. Likewise, audiences might want to learn more about Owens and the state law Lorincz tried to use in her defense.
All that said, The Perfect Neighbor remains affecting, showing how a rudimentary conflict can fester into something shattering, tragic, and senseless.
