“The Perfect Neighbor” Review: “Okay, Karen”

By Maurice Burbridge | October 20, 2025 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Netflix 

Sometimes you watch a movie, and quickly recognize that for better or worse, it is symbolic of the time in which it is made. Hopefully, decades from now, future viewers will look back on The Perfect Neighbor as an exemplar of a time where gun violence and racism were unbelievably common. But for now, this is the society we live in, highlighted brutally in Geeta Gandbhir’s new documentary — primarily through two forms of evidence: police body camera and CCTV interview footage. 

A New York Film Festival highlight, The Perfect Neighbor, follows a minor disagreement among Floridian neighbors Susan Lorincz, Ajike Owens and Owens’ children, which eventually turns lethal. Unlike the plethora of straight-to-streaming crime documentaries in the last few years which feel little more respectful than a YouTube video, Gandbhir’s film is as objective and as emotional as possible. You can tell that she cares and wants — perhaps needs — you to feel the same. 

Almost the entire case’s background story and related context are delivered through police camera footage, which depicts the escalating tensions between Lorincz and the families in her community, as well as her unreliability. 

How is there so much camera footage? Because, for well over a year prior to shooting Owens, Lorincz repeatedly called the police on the majority-Black children in her community (including Owens’ own) for “trespassing.” While she called the children slurs and derogatory terms, they called her the local “Karen.” 

I’ll avoid giving much specific details about the conflict, as the documentary does an excellent job of presenting all the relevant information objectively, and allowing you to come to your own conclusions, but also assured in the knowledge that any logical person would come to the same one. 

However, I must praise how the film handled its most emotional and raw moments, primarily when Owens’ family and friends learn of her death. Many films today, documentary or otherwise, seem to over-edit, constantly cutting back and forth between various angles and shots of the same moment. 

But because of the film’s steadfast commitment to its format, viewers have no distractions from the continuous horror on these people’s faces as they realize they have lost a friend, a mother and much more — all because children wanted to play in the vicinity of a neighbors yard.

And as you watch Lorincz unnecessarily escalate the situation, and ensuing conversations where she tries to talk herself out of taking accountability, you’re filled with an intense rage- not only at her, but at the circumstances that led to Owens’ murder in the first place. 

Lorincz attempted to use Florida’s stand-your-ground law in her defense. States have their own versions of this law, but generally it permits deadly force when one deems it necessary in certain situations, even if there is a possible method of retreat where all parties may be unharmed. 

The Perfect Neighbor uses the tragedy of Owens’ murder as an example of how these laws have resulted in not only an uptick in firearm homicides but also the racial disparity when it comes to the law’s implementation, often to the benefit of White Americans and to the detriment (fatally or otherwise) of Black Americans.

Documentaries often have a few goals, which may include informing people about something they didn’t fully understand before and also motivating them. The Perfect Neighbor is the sort of film that makes you want to cause some real change, because this sort of thing should never be able to happen again. 

I’m grateful that it exists, and I’m even more so grateful that the police’s body cameras were on, and after watching this film, I’m even more assured in my belief that they always should be. 

This is the sort of film you might spontaneously turn on because you scroll past it and get interested, but can’t stop thinking about for days, if not weeks, after. The sort you spend hours talking about to anyone who’ll listen, because how do you find the words to explain the many issues with needless violence and hatred in this country, and how can we fix it? 

Rating: 9/10 

The Perfect Neighbor is now available on Netflix U.S. The film had its New York premiere at the 63rd New York Film Festival recently, where I viewed it.