First coming under wider scrutiny in 2005 when passed in Florida, the stand-your-ground law allows property owners to use deadly force to defend their home from trespassers. The foreseeable result has been an uptick in homicides and a proven racial bias when it comes to the number of white shooters and Black victims. While there’s an overwhelming amount of data and cases a documentary could explore on the issue, Geeta Gandbhir’s gripping, infuriating The Perfect Neighbor takes an objectively narrow, focused approach, exploring a single case in Florida primarily through police bodycam and CCTV interrogation footage. Initial police calls involving a neighbor upset at the children trespassing on her property shockingly escalates in a single moment; Gandbhir lets the footage speak for itself, creating a documentary far more upsetting and impactful than any number of talking heads could provide.
It’s 2022 in the central Florida town of Ocala. Like thousands of others across the United States, it’s a neighborhood bustling with children enjoying the warm weather, playing outside, and occasionally testing the boundaries of the small bubble that is their world. Their bucolic games and finding innocent trouble accustomed to the age are the target of the local neighborhood “Karen” aka Susan Lorincz, who takes drastic measures of any inch of trespassing on her large lawn, swearing and yelling racist epithets at the children. Instead of confronting the perturbed and disturbed neighbor themselves, parents (including Ajike Owens, a mother of four) advise their children to come to them first so the adults can work through any squabbles. Susan’s first response is usually calling the police. Over the course of a year-and-a-half, we’re witness to several visits from the local police as they more or less babysit, taking in both sides of the story and usually leaving without much resolution––until one evening in June 2023 when an act of violence forever changes the neighborhood. After a squabble with the children, Ajike and her 10-year-old son come to Susan’s door. Without opening it to have a conversation, Susan shoots through her door, ultimately killing Ajike.
While The Perfect Neighbor is an indictment of stand-your-ground laws, it’s also an account of apathetic policing leading up to the tragic event. By placing the majority of our perspective in a first-person perspective of the police, one could argue the choice gives more sympathy to the officers than the victims, but rather in showing their step-by-step process, more questions arise about their methods. The officers, playing a game of he-said / she-said, hop back and forth to the neighbors, hoping to simply calm the situation that day as quickly as they can, failing to take a deeper, more serious investigation of the obvious red flags. With claims of Susan’s using the n-word and calling the children “slaves,” as well as waving her gun around, the troubling warning signs are in plain sight. This is a deeply disturbed individual, masking racism in claims she’s previously been raped and beaten and constantly fears for her life. As such, footage of the crime scene and subsequent CCTV interrogation footage becomes a chilling study of human behavior, wondering if Susan will continue to hide behind flimsy excuses or end up admitting to the reasons behind her horrifying act of murder.
As the public has become desensitized to these acts of appalling acts violence with the proliferation of quick social media clips, Gandbhir’s formal approach gives an unbiased voice back to the victims––both those who have been murdered and the families who are reeling from the loss. Through primarily body-cam footage in the first hour––first patiently setting the groundwork as we meet the children and fellow neighbors, as well as learn of other criminal trouble Susan has gotten herself into––then mostly CCTV interrogation footage in the final half-hour as Susan’s defiant innocence crumbles, this antisensationalist perspective strips the bias that pervades so much true-crime media, offering a sobering, detailed look at the case. A particular sequence when the children learn their mother has been killed is one of the most heartwrenching in recent memory. While other uses of footage breaking away from the impressive formal conceit aren’t quite as effective––including b-roll around the neighborhood, news reports, and some vérité shots of key moments, as well as an added score to amp up the tension––it’s understandable why Gandbhir wanted to flesh out the story to provide additional context.
It takes an interminably long time for charges to be pressed for what’s a clear-cut case, and Gandbhir takes a fascinating, surprising structural approach in depicting the trial, proving she’s more interested in the utilization of the stand-your-ground law: the precise ways in which they give the leeway for someone to commit an act of needless violence and the immediate aftermath of how the police handle the situation. Even if justice is served for one perpetrator, how many countless others walk away scot-free? And when justice is served, how much solace can it even provide? The Perfect Neighbor is a damning indictment of not only the freedom this law can provide those who premeditate murder, but the need for stricter gun laws, and the lack of early action when it comes to holding accountable unstable, trigger-happy racists. Gandbhir isn’t here to provide those answers, but with her unembellished, formally compelling vision, she gives all the evidence needed for those in power to rethink the laws and systems in place.
The Perfect Neighbor premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.