'Good American Family' Is Not Only Dishonest, It's Profoundly Bad Television

We covered the first two episodes of Hulu’s Good American Family after they aired, but our focus then was on the show’s blatant dishonesty. The first four episodes are told — at least in part — through the accounts of Michael and Kristine Barnett. The problem? Their version of events is complete bullshit. It’s like getting J.D. Vance’s take on the economy: yes, things are bad, but somehow it’s Biden’s fault. Or the deep state’s. Or Europe’s. Anyone’s fault but the people who enacted the policies that broke it.

That’s the version of Good American Family we’re getting — the one where a seven-year-old girl is portrayed as a violent sociopath who conned the Barnetts into paying for her surgeries, destroyed their careers, and tried to murder every member of the household. Oh, and she was actually 22 years old, which apparently justified the Barnetts renting her an apartment and abandoning her there to fend for herself.

But that’s not reality. Reality is that the Barnetts were cruel, abusive parents who discarded a young disabled girl because parenting her was inconvenient.

And yet, somehow, the fabricated version isn’t compelling either. Like so many limited series, it falls into the trap of overextension: this should’ve been a movie. We didn’t need three episodes of Natalia berating her adoptive parents. It was repetitive by the second episode and borderline unbearable by the third. The flashbacks — true to form — serve only to pad the runtime.

Then there’s the acting. Sweet Jesus. Mark Duplass is one of my favorite filmmakers, and I can’t remember ever disliking a performance of his — until now. What is he even doing here? It’s like a cartoon version of an emasculated man who only speaks in that pitiful, whiny voice that emasculated men use with their overbearing wives that makes me want to murder (no wonder, Natalia hates them). Ellen Pompeo fares no better, playing what amounts to a parody of a Karen: controlling, insufferable, and performatively compassionate. But like, dialed up to 11. If Hulu insists on this wildly fictionalized version of events, at least they didn’t try to make the Barnetts sympathetic. Natalia, however, is depicted as equally monstrous — basically a live-action Chucky doll in a walker. The Hallmark channel wishes it had performances this bad.

It’s an unredeemable mess: terrible characters, a trashy made-up storyline, lousy acting, and a repetitive structure that drains it of any dramatic tension. It’s exhausting, dishonest to the point of defamation, and I absolutely do not recommend it.