Poster of There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane

There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane

Documentary, Crime

Director: Liz Garbus

Release Date: July 25, 2011

Where to Watch

There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane is a documentary more about denial than the tragedy of the July 26, 2009 Taconic State Parkway crash. A mother drives the wrong way on a highway, which results in the death of herself, all the people in the car that she crashed into, her daughter and her nieces. One child survived with serious injuries. The documentary mainly deals with her family’s refusal to accept the overwhelming proof that she was high. There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane is eminently sympathetic by providing a reason for her self-medicating: her refusal to seem weak, her need to be in control and a tooth abscess. This documentary gives an example of hindsight is 20/20. There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane dissects every minute and petty detail of her life to provide an explanation for the horrific moment complete with a psychological expert with a heavy European accent and ex-friends expounding on why they became estranged around high school. Seriously? If There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane was satire or a fake documentary about a person allegedly doing something horrific with commentators providing as proof mundane, every day, normal aspects of life as proof of venality then at the end reveal that the person actually didn’t do anything then at least it would be amusing, but unfortunately it is real. At times, it hits the right notes when it juxtaposes the family’s denial with the victims’ families’ perspective. One scene almost was perfect when one of the driver’s family members reveals her secret-she is a smoker-after spending the whole movie saying that Diane wouldn’t hide anything. There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane may look at the wreckage and ask why, but it is too enthusiastic to respond and needed more restraint.

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