Netflix's 'Deadly American Marriage' Will Ruin Your Day

Coming off seeing video of last weekend’s brutal ICE raid in Worcester, hope already felt pretty thin and distant. Then, I tuned into Deadly American Marriage—admittedly, not a very self-caring move on my part.

So maybe I was primed for a less generous reading. But I had to hit pause halfway through the documentary, just stunned at the blatant and grotesque lies Molly Martens and Tom Martens spewed at the camera and how calmly and firmly they occupy—still—their fantasy. Their fantasy centers on the narrative that they killed Molly’s husband in self-defense. In reality, they beat him to death while he tried to escape them, and then they spun up a transparently false story about aggression and abuse, using that story to torment his surviving children for years to come.

Molly Martens and her father Tom Martens beat Molly’s husband, Jason, to death while trying to stop him from moving back to his native Ireland with his two children, Jack and Sarah. Molly had explosive anger issues and possessive tendencies that she then publicly projected onto Jason as she excused murdering him.

Now, after the retrial and a massive miscarriage of justice, Molly spouts nonsense about bringing domestic abuse into the limelight (supposedly her husband’s, not her own). New and escalating versions of the narrative transform from the Martens as the Martens’ lawyers tell a horror story about how Jason must have murdered his first wife, with explanations that sound as ridiculous as they are. They even imply that Jason’s daughter was somehow responsible for her mother and father’s deaths.

It’s infuriating to watch. Needless to say.

At the very least, there is a top-trending Netflix true crime documentary showcasing the absurdity of the Martens’ story. And it gives the Martens the opportunity to fully humiliate themselves in front of millions.

Molly is of the Sherri Papini variety—a pretty white lady who lies through her teeth to paint herself as the victim of dramatic, violent crimes—and then uses those fantasies to punish and control the people around her. Instead of a boyfriend, it’s Molly’s father who steps in to protect her from her actions and echo her narrative. Tom Martens’ involvement comes with the extra layer that he’s retired FBI counterintelligence and carries himself with the scummy conviction that no one in the room is as smart as he is. You’d think FBI counterintelligence would be better at disassembling and acting, but Tom Martens is case in point that some people really can’t be taught.

The documentary gives the Martens’ version of events its fair share of airtime, and it presents the killers’ accounts with the same drama and gravity as the victims’. As unsavory as it is in the moment to hear, those killers’ accounts give the audience the opportunity to believe or dismiss the Martens on their own — and the accounts are so flimsy it isn’t a difficult process. But it also, in a clumsy mobius strip of storytelling logic, showcases how showcasing such stories retraumatizes the survivors and their loved ones. That said, it doesn’t fall into the trap of Perfect Wife or American Nightmare, where a woman accounts a horrific event for most of the runtime, all while the documentary’s narrative structure whispers to viewers, Don’t believe this woman! Everything is upfront, and the film gives the Martens the liberty of sinking their own ship.

It’s a well-made documentary, even-keeled and patient in unspooling a story with many different “truths,” but like most true crime, it also follows a formula of exploitative shock value where it could tread far more carefully.