Megan Vick

Good American
Family ☆☆☆

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Mark Duplass, and Imogen Faith Reid

Created by: Katie Robbins

llen Pompeo wants to break the Meredith Grey mould she’s inhabited for the past two decades on Grey’s Anatomy. Her first starring project since putting on those iconic blue scrubs is Good American Family, another “ripped from the headlines” true crime drama for Hulu, which Pompeo also executive produces alongside Sarah Sutherland and series creator Katie Robbins.

The series covers the controversial abuse case of Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian child with a rare form of dwarfism who was abandoned by her American adoptive family after they claimed she was really an adult out to scam them. For Pompeo, who plays Natalia’s adopted mother Kristine Barnett, it is a big departure from the role she’s now synonymous with, but not in the way she probably hoped. While the new Hulu series purports to show the multiple perspectives involved in Natalia Grace’s case to force the audience to examine their own biases, the problem is that Good American Family doesn’t make a valid case for those perspectives, especially regarding the Barnetts. The goal is noble, but the pacing and layout of the series make Good American Family confounding and messy, and unnecessary structural issues obscure anything new to say about the case itself.

Natalia Grace was originally born in Ukraine and then given up for adoption, coming to live with the Barnetts when she was eight years old. By the time she was 11, the couple had her birth certificate legally changed to say she was 22 and then left her to fend for herself in an apartment they rented.

Legal technicalities allowed the Barnetts to escape legal prosecution for the abuse and abandonment of Natalia Grace, despite multiple doctors confirming that Natalia came to them as a child. The series explores the Barnetts’ claim that Natalia was secretly an adult given to them by a fraudulent adoption agency, who was secretly out to steal money and harm them. It also showcases Natalia’s allegations that the Barnetts, especially Kristine, abused her, and follows the court battle after she was found by her third adopted family, the Mans.

When a “ripped from the headlines” story is dramatized for television or movies, it’s important to pay attention to whether it classifies itself as “inspired by” or “based on” real-life events. Good American Family falls firmly in the latter camp. The series retains the names of the real people and includes a disclaimer at the front of each episode that the dramatized events are based on public record and are meant to show all perspectives, without choosing sides or influencing the audience to side with either the Barnetts or Natalia Grace.

Yet the disclaimer also implies that there’s a grey area between the two sides. While the exact account of what happened between the Barnetts and Natalia Grace when she lived in their home will truly be known only by the people who lived through it, the scientific evidence isn’t up for debate. Natalia Grace was a child when she was in the Barnetts’ care, and she was abandoned. If the goal of the series is to humanize the Barnetts, Good American Family doesn’t achieve that. That’s equal parts due to how the show is written and how it is laid out.

The first four episodes of the series focus on allegations made by the Barnetts against Natalia and showcase her early years under the family’s care. These episodes are ostensibly meant to show the Barnetts’ argument for their poor treatment of Natalia, but they play out like a B-horror movie, as Natalia’s (Imogen Faith Reid) acting out continues to fracture Michael (Mark Duplass) and Kristine’s (Pompeo) marriage. Does Natalia exhibit disturbing behaviour during the early episodes? Yes. Does she ever exhibit behaviour that would make anyone think she was an adult? No, and the longer the series spends trying to explain the Barnetts’ decisions, the less sympathetic or understandable the couple becomes.

Overall, though, the back half of the season is a lot stronger than the first. As Natalia’s case unfolds, and she begins seeking justice for the abuse she suffered, logical explanations for her alleged behaviour in the show’s initial episodes begin to emerge. The show insists that it isn’t trying to say that one side is more accurate than the other, but after four episodes of setting up the Barnetts’ perspective, the latter four undo all goodwill built up for the couple, if there was any to begin with. It would have been better for Good American Family to have restructured its narrative, recounting events from a dual perspective and allowing viewers to see the entire story play out from both points of view.

Outside of dramatizing a popularized real-life case, Good American Family is the testing ground for Pompeo’s post Grey’s Anatomy career. She definitely proves that she can do more than play the “dark and twisty” general surgeon, but Kristine is a puzzling character choice for this attempted breakout. It’s 2025; not every female character on television needs to be likable. Women are allowed to have flaws, but they should also feel human and recognizable. Kristine Barnett is a woman with secrets, but her behaviour is despicable even in her alleged version of events. To Pompeo’s credit, she shines the most in Kristine’s darkest moments, but the haphazard way this sensitive story is portrayed doesn’t do her many favours.

Duplass does a bit more with Michael Burnett, playing the character’s neediness with an expert level of cringe. You hate him because he doesn’t have a backbone, but you also feel sorry that he’s so desperate for love that he loses all sight of his soul. However, the all-star of the cast is Imogen Faith Reid, who plays Natalia throughout the limited series. The British actress not only has to tackle Natalia at different ages, but also her personality changes as the series’ perspectives shift. Yes, she’s stuck being a horror movie caricature in the early episodes, but Reid is absolutely haunting in the part and is equally savvy at garnering sympathy during the middle stretch and keeping the viewer on her side through to the series’ end.

When adapting a case that was so heavily covered in the news and already has an accompanying docuseries – The Curious Case of Natalia Grace – the main question becomes: what does this dramatization add to the story? While the show is messy, it’s not ambiguous in its moral stance, and it doesn’t expose new information or even say anything new about the case. Good American Family does redeem itself in the back half, but it’s a stretch to say it ever justifies its existence. Ultimately, this series ends up just being another true-crime title you can watch in the background — and it certainly doesn’t break any of the moulds it set out to smash.

– Courtesy: collider.com