A Life Too Short: The Isabella Nardoni Case

A documentary must bring all versions of the parts, and ALL EVIDENCE found by the expert. That's not what we see here. They bring partial information, opinions of those who weren't even involved in the case. Those who followed the case identified such failures because they felt a lack of precious evidence information, brought during the trial of the case, which made clear the reasons for the conviction of the defendants. It is not what we see here. I was left wondering who this "documentary" came to serve... because it wasn't the truth about the case. What a waste of opportunity! This is NOT a documentary, unfortunately.

I feel like this documentary has all of the necessary elements to explain what happened to the poor Isabella but the way it is presented is very confusing.

The English subtitles lack in clarity and people are shown on screen with their Spanish title but not often with the English equivalent so you're not sure who they are or what their relevance is.

The flow of the information darts about quite a lot and I feel that there is a lot of unnecessary filler. It seems there is a lot of focus on the outside 'circus' which does need to be covered, but I feel this is more the sole focus and therefore takes away from the main premise of the documentary.

I feel that this needed to be more clear cut to really tell the little girls story.

This is such a tragic story but my review is for the film, the Engish version. Netflix normally uses more quality voice-over actors but the ones here were just reading lines as if translated by an online app that didn't know how to transfer to American words and phrases rather than simply repeat the exact translation into English. That made it hard to feel an emotional connection. I should have switched to the native language and just read subtitles to hear the emotion. Since I'm not familiar with this story - maybe because I don't watch any news - I would have liked to know more about Isabella and her life prior to this horrible tragedy. There was very little introduction or focus on her, there were no crime scene photos and negligible reinactments of what they believe happened. There was too much chit chat that was just describing how people were acting and not any forencic information except a lengthy statement from the defense saying that forensic scientist don't know anything for sure. I disagree because it is a science that has become very precise in determining all factors. As a clairvoyent, I had distinct impressions that the step mother killed Isabella - or thought she did - in a fit of jealousy and the husband tried to covered it up by tossing the body out the window. Both are guilty. It's actually more common than we realize that a step parent harms or kills the step child. There are real horror stories of the in court records. But perhaps the greatest tragedy is the first witness calling the apartment manager instead of the ambulance or police. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard! In the U. S. each citizen has a duty by law to administer immediate aide when someone needs medical attention, which usually means calling an ambulance, at the very least. Here, if an able adult called the apt mgr before summoning aide, he would likely be held accountable in some way for delaying urgent assistance. We expect that from children but not from adults. I'm so glad the mother was able to find joy again and has 2 beautiful children who will always remember their sister. That's amazing strength, to go on living and to be able to say she's not over protective. This will be one of those cases talked about in law schools and remembered as one of the many where step parents kill and the spouse protects their crime. Rest in peace little Isabelle.