‘The Perfect Neighbor’ Review: A Bodycam Chronicle of Racism and Paranoia in Florida (Netflix)

When I was a kid, one of the most awkward situations in childhood went something like: “Ma’am, could you please throw our ball back?” Everyone had that neighbor — the grumpy man or woman from the next house, the park, or the public playground — who lost their temper whenever a group of kids playing soccer or baseball made too much noise or accidentally sent a ball flying into their yard. Usually, the worst that could happen was not getting the ball back, or getting it back punctured. That was about it. Times, clearly, have changed.

In The Perfect Neighbor, a situation like that spirals out of control in just a few months, ending in a violent crime. In a neighborhood in Marion County, Florida, a white woman named Susan kept calling the police because many of the local kids — mostly Black — played on an empty lot next to her property, though it wasn’t actually hers. The noise, the shouts, maybe the occasional ball hitting her fence drove her crazy, and nearly every month police officers were called in to calm things down. At first, it seemed like one of those petty, low-stakes suburban disputes: a cranky, slightly racist woman who couldn’t get along with the kids — or, for that matter, with any of the families around her.

Then, as the film shows in detail, things took a tragic turn. A gun appeared, someone ended up dead, and the case escalated into something much larger. In Florida, there’s a law known as “stand your ground” which allows individuals, under certain circumstances, to use force (including lethal force) to defend themselves if they feel physically threatened, with no legal obligation to retreat. The law has fueled a sharp rise in killings — often white people shooting Black victims — justified by claims that someone “looked threatening” near their property. Does this case fall into that logic?

Director Geeta Gandbhir structures her documentary around a striking formal choice. The film is composed almost entirely of footage from police body cameras, along with clips from security cameras in detention centers, courtrooms, and a few local news segments. Using images she didn’t shoot herself, Gandbhir builds a gripping mosaic of escalating tension: the neighbor’s increasingly unhinged complaints, the frustration of the children’s parents, and the police officers trying to calm things down. “It’s better they play football here than go out stealing,” one cop says, in a well-meaning but tone-deaf attempt at reassurance. Everything seems manageable — neighborly even — until, in a country marked by racism, guns, and deep political division, the inevitable explosion occurs.

Focusing on a single case, The Perfect Neighbor becomes a revealing snapshot of a nation unable to coexist peacefully across social, economic, and especially racial lines. The film can be hard to watch at times — particularly the police footage capturing the victim’s family in shock — and occasionally skirts the ethical limits of what should or shouldn’t be shown. But it remains anchored in verifiable facts, in what the cameras actually saw. The steady escalation of events stands as painful proof of how volatile everyday life in America can be.

A long, tense scene showing the woman’s interrogation while in custody may be the film’s most powerful moment — not only a synthesis of the story’s emotional core but also the clearest example of Gandbhir’s chosen method. Dozens of documentaries have explored murders driven by racial fear and hate — both increasingly stoked by those in power — but The Perfect Neighbor stands apart for the immediacy of its form and the truth that emerges from it. You can debate the editing choices, but the truth ultimately comes through in what those cameras captured, live, in real time.

And even for viewers tempted to sympathize with the woman — because, yes, it can be irritating to have kids shouting next door all day — the footage itself dismantles any illusion of justification. In every police visit, it’s clear that she amplifies and distorts minor annoyances through fear and prejudice that go far beyond reason. And that kind of truth can’t be staged or reconstructed; it’s simply there, visible in front of the lens — a reality, as the saying goes, at twenty-four frames per second.