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18th Sep 2019

Marie Adler shares her views on Unbelievable, the Netflix drama which depicts her traumatic rape case

Paul Moore

A journalist that helped tell Adler’s story has shared her feelings on the Netflix drama.

Since being released on Netflix last week, viewers have been extremely interested in the real-life story depicted in Unbelievable.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Unbelievable tells the true story of Marie Adler (portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman who was bound and raped by a masked man in her home over a decade ago.

Adler reported the incident to the police, but because of a lack of strong evidence and her complicated background, neither the police nor some of her close friends believed her story.

Ultimately, a combination of coercion, intense mental pressure and delayed trauma caused Marie to retract the statement that she made to the police.

In doing so, Adler found herself in a downward spiral as she lost her job, some of her friends and the trust of her various foster families.

However, unbeknownst to Marie, hundreds of miles away, detectives Grace Rasmussen and Karen Duvall (played by Toni Collette and Merritt Wever in the show) met while investigating an eerily similar pair of intruder rapes and partnered together to catch a potential serial rapist.

Ultimately, the work by those detectives on that case led to them investigating Marie’s attack.

The drama has gained impressive reviews as, unlike some shows and documentaries, it demonstrates a sensitivity to its victims.

Netflix’s programme draws from reporting by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong for ProPublica and The Marshall Project, later published as a non-fiction book, A False Report.

Since the show was released, Armstrong, has shared his views on the show and, having been in touch with the real-life Marie, also shared her views on events portrayed in Unbelievable on Twitter this week.

Armstrong says: “Two weeks ago I got a call, from Marie. She told me she had just watched the series. Watching it was hard, she said. ‘I did cry quite a bit,’ she said. But she had decided she wanted to and was glad that she did. She called the show ‘excellent’.

“I asked Marie if I could share her thoughts on Twitter. She said that would be fine. She brought up one scene in particular — in the first episode, in which she’s confronted by police and recants. Marie has told me before that it can be a struggle for her to put her feelings and thoughts into words. In that scene, she said, Kaitlyn Dever (the actress who plays Marie in the show) captured her struggle. ‘It was, like, perfect,’ she said.”

Armstrong added: “The series shows how two of Marie’s former foster moms doubted her account. Both later apologised to her. Marie forgave both. She kept ties with both. After finishing the series, Marie called both, to reassure them: ‘The show doesn’t demonise you.’ She encouraged both to watch.

“Watching the last episode, watching the re-creation of the Colorado detectives closing in, provided Marie something she didn’t expect. ‘Seeing him get put away, that was closure for me,’ she said.”

You can read the whole thread below and it’s extremely informative for two reasons.

Firstly, it provides a thorough and important background of the real-life case.

Secondly, it’s an indication of how the filmmakers handled Marie’s story with sensitivity and care.