It’s easy for a TV show to amp up the sensationalism when adapting a true-crime story. For the producers of Hulu’s “Good American Family,” though, the hope was that the horror at the center of Natalia Grace’s tragic adoption case would challenge viewers to go beyond their knee-jerk reactions. “So often these days we look at something and we make snap judgments about it. We don’t ask a lot of questions,” series creator Katie Robbins said. “We wanted to disrupt that idea. (The show) became about figuring out how to play with timelines and perspective so that people are constantly questioning their first impressions.
“When those turns happen, you are forced to say, ‘Why did I think this? Maybe I’m wrong about this,’” she added. “The more we can ask ourselves about our own perceptions, the more empathetic we can be.”
Based on the real-life story that already inspired a multi-season Investigation Discovery docuseries, “Good American Family” follows Kristine and Michael Barnett after they adopt Natalia Grace, a 7-year-old girl from Ukraine with a rare form of dwarfism. But as conflicts arise and the family dynamic goes south, the parents wonder if Natalia is much older than she appears. In her first starring TV role outside of “Grey’s Anatomy,” Ellen Pompeo leads the cast as matriarch Kristine Barnett, while Mark Duplass plays her husband, Michael, and breakout star Imogen Faith Reid is Natalia Grace.
The eight-episode drama shows how the Barnetts’ adoption devolves into their petitioning the court to change Natalia’s legal age to 22 when she was only 8 and then leaving her alone in an apartment to fend for herself. (The court granted their petition and legally but incorrectly changed her age, though more evidence later came to light and her real age has since been restored.) It opens with Kristine’s arrest in the middle of a speaking engagement where she boasts about being a good mother to her biological sons. Then the show flashes back to the adoption of Natalia Grace and how Kristine’s world fell apart when she started suspecting her daughter was trying to bring her down.
Though Pompeo’s casting got the most attention as “Good American Family” went into production, it’s newcomer Reid who steals the show. Starting with Episode 5, the point of view shifts from the Barnetts’ version of events to Natalia’s, showing the harrowing journey of a young girl with disabilities left behind by the adults who promised to protect her.
The decision to kick off the show with Kristine and Michael was a gamble because the exec producers didn’t want viewers to be turned off by what initially seems to be a sympathetic depiction of the parents. “There was a pretty big risk in telling the story in this way, especially now that there’s so much information out there that makes most people demonize the Barnetts,” showrunner Sarah Sutherland said. “The fact that most people really get it and feel moved by the perspective shift in Episode 5 is a lovely relief.”
For her part, Reid wanted to honor Natalia by bringing to light the injustice she and her fictionalized counterpart suffered. “Kristine brainwashed her to think that this is all on her, but in reality, she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Reid said. “Natalia was just misunderstood. She was just a child who had a lot of trauma, and if only she was taken in by a family who could have taken their time to learn about reactive attachment disorder and worked with her instead of working against her, it would have done wonders.”
In lieu of speaking with the real-life subjects — the real Natalia Grace, now 21, declined to participate in the show — the creative team relied on hundreds of pages of research and social-media messages to reconstruct the sequence of events. The goal, as frequent collaborators Robbins and Sutherland tell it, was to bring empathy to a story that was already over- run by tabloid fodder. “There are so many elements of the case that haven’t gotten enough attention — issues around bias and disability and whose story gets to be believed and whose doesn’t,” Robbins said. “These themes feel particularly potent in this moment where scientific facts aren’t given the weight that they once were. We really wanted people to have the chance to grapple with why they believe what they believe.”
“Good American Family” is now streaming on Hulu.
This story first ran in the Limited Series & TV Movies issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
Read more from the Limited Series & TV Movies issue here.
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