‘Lost Girls’ On Netflix Canada Is Much More Than A Just True Crime Murder Film
True crime comes with a brutal twist in Netflix Canada's Lost Girls.It's based on a true story about a serial killer in Long Island. But there's so much more to it than just murder.
At 1.5-hour long, the Netflix Original dropped on the streaming platform today.
The drama mystery follows the story of a girl named Shannan Gilbert who went missing back in 2010. Her mother Mari went on a relentless quest to find out where her daughter was.
When Mari brought details of her missing daughter to the police's attention, she was met with uncooperative officials. Before her death, 24-year-old Shannan was a sex worker.
After some searching, the police found that Shannan was among "10 to 16 other girls killed by the still un-captured and unidentified bandit of New York", per Pop Buzz.
The serial killer is nicknamed the "Craigslist Ripper" because, for 20 years, he targeted prostitutes' advertisements on Craigslist. The remains of the murdered women were left around the shore of Long Island, including Shannan's.
In addition to finding her body, police also uncovered that the night of her death was spent calling 911 to report that someone was trying to murder her.
The screenplay is based on a 2013 book of the same name written by Robert Kolker.
It stars Amy Ryan as Mari Gilbert, opposite Thomasin McKenzie, Gabriel Byrne, Lola Kirke, and Oona Laurence.
Lost Girls was directed by Liz Garbus, a documentary film director and producer.
She sat down with Variety to discuss the film and how it will change the conversation around sex workers and the #MeToo movement.
Garbus said, "I feel like what’s different about Lost Girls is we really start to understand how that’s not ok anymore. This case had a significant impact. Even pre-#MeToo, over time you saw the language change in the way that newspapers talked about victims. The women who were part of the vigil fought very hard for that."
When speaking about the missing girls, she said, "The justice system doesn’t see them as fully human, they don’t look for them in the same way as they might look for a 14-year-old girl from a middle-class home."
According to Refinery29, Garbus hones in on the dismissive attitude that both the police and the press can have towards victims who happened to be sex workers.
In a video for Netflix, Garbus shares that, "What I felt was extraordinary, that really couldn't be covered in documentaries were the internal struggles of the families who were going through this terrible injustice of losing a loved one and having no one care or look for them."
You can follow Mari Gilbert as she uncovers her daughter's murder in Lost Girls streaming on Netflix Canada now.
