Matt Birkbeck

Skye Borgman’s documentary Girl in the Picture is the tragic tale of a 20 year-old, blond-haired woman who barely knew her own identity. Her body was found on the side of the road in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in April, 1990. Hospital staff noted many ‘older’ bruises on her body, along with scratches on her chest, and immediately suspected her husband Clarence. Known as Tonya Hughes, she was an exotic dancer with a two year-old son, Michael. Problem was: the real Tonya Hughes died 20 years ago.

The extraordinary layers in this true crime story are carefully peeled back in a fashion that hooks the viewer almost immediately and never lets go. This is a particularly bizarre and unsavoury set of events — and it’s complicated — but with in-person interviews and recreations, filmmaker Skye Borgman moves seamlessly back and forth in time to drop shock revelation after shock revelation. This is a dip into the heart of darkness as to the fate of women and children — violence, vanishing, kiddie porn and other horrors — and for all that some mysteries are cleared up, the movie ends with many questions unanswered.