American Vandal: Profound Satire

Who knew that an eight-part true crime mockumentary investigating who was responsible for spray-painting 27 penises onto cars in a high school faculty parking lot could be so profoundly delightful? Certainly not me. And yet, I defy anyone to watch Netflix's American Vandal and not walk away with a sense of giddy glee.

The show purports to be shot by two high school boys, Peter and Sam, from the Hanover High School's AV club. They are investigating the aforementioned act of vandalism, and whether the accused, and subsequently expelled student, Dylan Maxwell, really did it. Following the footsteps of recent true crime fare that captured the public's imagination, like The Jinx or Making a Murderer, American Vandal is an intricate and precise satire that manages to both mock the format and glorify it at the same time. The genius of this show lies not just in the fact that it will make you laugh: it's true accomplishment is that it will genuinely make you care and eagerly binge eight episodes to discover if Dylan Maxwell really was guilty. It's genius television.

I don't want to go into further details because it's honestly a wonderful mystery that is plotted to perfection. You have all your standard high school cliques - the deadbeats, the hyper-accomplished, the nerds, the jocks. You have messy relationships that give people alibis and motives, student-teacher conflict that leads to much speculation and a breakthrough involving "splatter," and the gradual over-involvement of the documentarians with their subject as they become increasingly convinced that Dylan is innocent and must now find the true culprit.

The opening titles instantly indicate how well American Vandal understands the shows it's satirizing. From the mournful music to the perfect overlay of pictures of the crime, the potential perpetrator, and inexplicably, the ocean, it immediately sets the scene. And the actors know exactly how to portray people who know they are on camera, but are also regular people who don't actually know how to behave on camera. It's always a tricky feat to pull off (think of Jim's asides to the cameras on The Office) and these actors do an admirable job of appearing self-conscious but also excited to be interviewed about this ridiculous crime.

American Vandal gets all the details right. The characters and the way they lean into stereotypes and biases only to have their preconceived notions thrown back in their faces is spot on. The ramifications of being accused and how that affects your status in the wider community is captured beautifully. The animations to determine vantage points and the painstaking piecing together of Instagram and Snapchat footage to construct detailed timelines is riotously funny in its precision and ultimate silliness. And the emotional toll that this project takes on the filmmakers and the notoriety they gain throughout Hanover High encapsulates everything that happens when documentarians gets too close to their subject and must struggle to regain their objectivity.

I know the premise seems beyond insane and you cannot fathom why this show is becoming one of those word-of-mouth sensations that Netflix is so adept at creating. But believe me. Once you start watching American Vandal, you will buy in to the hype. This is by far one of the funniest things created in 2017, and I think we can all agree, we've never needed a laugh more.