The Trial: A Murder in the Family (2017) User Reviews

Interesting, but ultimately a bit contrived

[rabbitmoon · 6/10 · 26 May 2017]

The Trial was quite fun to watch, not only acting as a pseudo-jury yourself deliberating on what verdict you choose, but observing all the usual human-nature nuances of people discussing anything. Bias, attention seeking egos, the "I can look at someone and suss them out immediately!" self-aggrandizing sorts, personal experience creating unconscious agendas, projecting of one's past onto the people in question. You hear a lot of "I felt this, now I feel that" because there's precious little actual evidence.

The final episode though seemed hugely contrived, trying to wreck havoc with your guesses until the very final moments. In going for the twisty-drama angle, the show lost a lot of credibility in how it sets up the opposing suspects. Specifically, the usual character traits that normally lend a pattern of character to these cases were hugely manipulated against expectation, making the whole experiment unfair in terms of its objectives to offer up some pseudo-reality. One man goes from gentle, loving, smiling, affectionate, fully- accepting of a woman's infidelities, to aggressive murder without remorse or emotion. The other goes from nice-guy to dominant, aggressive, manipulative, controlling, impulsive, entitled, violent - but of course he didn't do it. Channel 4, having shamelessly contrived the characters in these last moments to toy with your perceptions, then try to place the trial in the context of violence- from-partners, with some statistics. I'm really not sure what point it was trying to make, and I'm not sure if they know themselves. My guess is that two endings were shot (the characters and circumstances in the lead-up were certainly written to cater equally to the murder), with whatever contrary ending provided the best drama depending on what the jury verdict was.

Confusing evidence - but real life can be like that too

[instagav · 6/10 · 17 January 2022]

I enjoyed this, although the feeling I had at the end was that the evidence (as shown to us) in the court was confusing and, at times, contradictory without any explanations being offered as to why. There was no explanation from anyone about the alternative suspect portrayed here, other than one witness whose story (as the prosecution identified) didn't line up with all the other evidence.

Given the evidence presented in court, a finding of Not Guilty based on Reasonable Doubt seemed fair.

The fact that didn't reflect what actually happened says more about the pre-trial processes and witness selections than the jury system itself.

Very entertaining

[berngroves · 8/10 · 23 October 2023]

There's no way a majority of these jurors would have passed juror selection in real life. This was very entertaining but so many problems with the jury. I did really like it though. I like this type of drama and this type of documentary. This just missed the mark combining the 2. I do understand the jurors experiences and stories was maybe needed to add interest, just not realistic to think they could have been real jurors with their life experiences. This was well done with the raw shots, CCTV making it more realistic. The acting of the real actors was very good. Some being popular UK actors I've seen before. Having real lawyers was a good move and I believe the jurors were real people making it really different.

Riveting

[Thatsmymiddlename · 10/10 · 29 April 2019]

From start to finish I was hooked. This film manages to be original, important, and thoroughly engrossing. A must-see, for lots of reasons.

Different to everything else on TV!

[rachelmiller-44900 · 10/10 · 1 May 2020]

Never seen anything so realistic. Keeps you gripped throughout and the bonus is we actually find out the truth at the end. 100% worth a watch!

A stunning piece of television

[tonksie-38585 · 10/10 · 6 February 2022]

If you like legal dramas, this is a must see.

A mix of documentary and drama, it follows a murder case to its verdict. Without giving anything away, there's are segments towards that end of the mock trail showing flashbacks of the actual fictional murder and events leading up to it. It actually left me holding my breath, and there's a couple of very clever twists that leave you not knowing what is meant to have actually happened until the very end.

Showing accurate processes within a trial and the jury was totally absorbing. I was left emotionally drained at the end. I can't recommend this enough!

Miss trial

[Lejink · 4/10 · 30 May 2017]

A bizarre cross between reality TV and fictional drama, this "You the Jury" contrivance presented a fictionalised murder put before a real life ex-judge, defending and prosecuting counsel and twelve jury members drawn from the public at large.

Spread over five nights, it came to a conclusion in the final episode with the judgement of the jury and finally a depiction of the events as they "really" occurred.

As someone who's never been on a jury myself, I found some of the procedural aspects to be of interest but the constant straining of a writer's fiction with the real-life cogitations of the jury members for me produced an inconclusive outcome. I do believe that most murders, especially of the domestic kind, are pretty open and shut, but here the introduction of a credible alternative killer who conveniently has no alibi seemed very contrived and almost bound to create the outcome seen at the end.

I found the speechifying of the public jury to be tiresome and gratuitous at times as each of them seeks to impose their version of the truth on their fellow jurors. I also wasn't too interested in the points-scoring of the opposing counsels, with the whole thing in the end feeling artificial. The extended reveal of the "actual" events in the aftermath of the decision could just as easily have been twisted to give a different version of events leading to an inescapable feeling of manipulation particularly with the use of background music, unusual camera set-ups and other recognisable TV directorial traits where no one swears or fluffs their lines and everyone walks into shot at just the right time, almost as if they'd been cued up. It wasn't hard to imagine the vox-poppers rehearsing their speeches or re-taking them for best effect with the strange outcome that the actors playing the fictionalised parts seemed more real than their true-life overseers. And where was the police testimony or scientific evidence, both palpably absent from the case? DNA, the greatest criminology discovery of recent times hardly gets a look-in.

Like a strange collision between "The Thin Blue Line" and "Twelve Angry Men", this show would have you think it was pushing back barriers but in the end it was just another gimmicky crime drama which struggled to fully satisfy or educate its audience as it wished to do.

Brilliant! Very well done.

[ar_brierley · 10/10 · 17 August 2021]

This was very well done, for what it was trying to achieve I think it succeeded brilliantly- informative and entertaining. Definitely worth watching if you like (1) British tv (rather than American), and (2) courtroom dramas.

Compelling and human-drama interesting, this hybrid reality-fictional drama deserves credit. But ..

[One-T- · 5/10 · 26 August 2023]

(Spoilers included) For being highly compelling and engrossing, this hybrid reality-fictional drama deserves credit. But at least a couple of aspects about it disturbed me.

Firstly - and one pointed out by other reviewers - after the viewer has become so invested in the story and its potential outcome (was the accused guilty, or not, of murdering his wife and mother of his children?), in the latter episodes it became clear to me that this was NOT a 'complete and accurately realistic representation of any real events', but a fictional drama with the plotline, directorship and editing all being contrived to swing the viewer's 'own verdict' this way then that.

Entertaining and compelling yes, but not 'real-life'. As written elsewhere, the last episode - with its supposed demonstration of what 'really' happened left me feeling a bit confused and cheated, and now fully aware that I'd been watching only a fictional drama.

To me, this is important because of the subject matter, its impact upon people's real lives, and the sense that this film was probably intended to be somewhat 'educational' or influential to its viewers. This brings to the second aspect I found uncomfortable.

The text at the finality of the series quoted real statistics about the numbers of women who are killed in England and Wales by their partners/ex-partners, alongwith the 'fact' that it was all women on this jury who had voted the accused 'guilty' - 4 against 8 'not guilty' - and the verdict which was the filmmakers' finally revealed chosen 'truth' .. the accused did murder his wife. Then the text message to us all that half a million of us will next year be called to similarly decide the fate of another citizen (and their dependants btw) by being called to be on a jury (although not all murder cases of course).

The implication of this final message could be construed as suggesting something like, "listen to the women who're probably right - don't risk letting guilty murderous men free to continue living amongst us".

I have a huge problem particularly with this text because it might actually influence future jury members' decisions, yet the (lack of!) evidence presented in court throughout this series in no way suggested that this man was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Solid and scientific evidence and enquiry by the barristers during court was irritatingly (and surely, realistically) lacking. At least some of the 'guilty' verdict women appeared to base their decision on such as 'gut feeling / I can just suss people' or 'I knew an apparently respectable man who murdered his wife', or 'I was beaten by my ex-partner so i know what men are capable of' .. all valid self-expressions but NONE of which was based on the evidence of THIS case as presented to them in court.

This is the danger - the potential for personal and sweeping generalist prejudice generated by an individual's life experience then mixing with the hugely important role asked of them in a court case. Individual life experience which forms a person's character is already covered (in theory at least) by dint of the 12 randomly diverse members of society which form a jury - different viewpoints automatically - but the verdict should be based on the evidence presented to court, expertly and accurately interpreted, with its logical analysis by jurors - the full and accurate facts as presented during this individual trial.

This series did not provide us, or presumably the jury, with anything like such adequately comprehensive facts - if this aspect of the workings of a trial (and the poor quality of the prosecution and defence), is a realistic portrayal of our justice system, I quake in fear that I or someone I care about might one day be wrongly accused of a serious crime!

Overall I found this series engrossing (until frustrated at the end), and an interesting filmic concept (tho' maybe not so successfully achieved), but which risks (via the filmmakers' apparent bias) generating potentially influential and dangerous prejudice for some of our future jurors.

Hokum obscures the real drama

[markel-87497 · 2/10 · 2 January 2019]

This was a disappointing series because it used the contrivances of bad drama to obscure an important subject: the human nature of the justice system. I have been on two juries ( none a murder case) and deciding evidence is 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is dramatic enough without all the histrionics employed by this team of filmmakers. The inveterate use of close-ups is usually a good indication of bad directing; in a real trial trial there are no close-ups, just the tense space of uncomfortable people in a room together because of distressing circumstances.

Then there was the constant use of dramatic recreations. In a real trial you would have barren recreations of time and space sketched out in a video or on a whiteboard instead of these filmed dramas which could have never been used as evidence in a courtroom. Also, the timing was excruciatingly slow; there was about two episodes of material there stretched out to five overly long hours.

The drama in a real trial is the studied absence of drama and even the occasional flamboyance of a famous lawyer is looked up with distaste. Speaking of that, the defense lawyer with his organ-tone drawl was very irritating. he might as well have been selling snake oil. If he had been my lawyer, QC or not, the moment he opened his mouth he'd be out the door.

The way to due a series like this would have been to make it as realistic a trial as possible, not by hyping the drama but by revealing the boredom, the slowness of time, and the moments of real drama involving human beings and their lives. I have seen similar programs do this very effectively; one, done a few years ago, featured John Turturro as a shambolic detective. "The Night of...". That series made prison life come alive for me. "A Murder in the Family" just reminded me of a lot of bad movies.