New Grace Millane documentary The Lie is airing on Netflix.
New Grace Millane documentary The Lie is airing on Netflix.
REVIEW
The extensive use of CCTV footage in true crime documentary The Lie: The Murder of Grace Millane, Netflix’s number one movie in New Zealand today, makes for compelling and shocking viewing.
I won’t lie, it’s a shock to see little old New Zealand get the big-budget True Crime treatment. While Aotearoa’s top-tier investigative journalists do produce excellent deep dives into some of the country’s notorious crimes, these are mostly budget-friendly podcasts.
The documentary follows the murder of English backpacker Grace Millane in Auckland in 2018. The night before her 23rd birthday she went on a Tinder date. First, cocktails at Sky City, then more drinks at a nearby bar. Things were going great. She messages a friend, “I click so well with him”. A few hours later her date strangled her to death.
These terrible facts are widely known. The initial search for Millane and the subsequent arrest and murder trial of 26-year-old man Jesse Shane Kempson were extensively covered in media at the time. But there is a world of difference between reading or watching news reports and actually seeing the events leading to Millane’s murder and the immediate aftermath play out in real time via ever-present CCTV footage.
It begins with black and white CCTV footage of Auckland’s CBD as grainy people shuffle around in the Christmas rush. A police voiceover from a news conference at the time reveals that they are meticulously combing through similar footage in their desperate search for Millane. It feels like looking for a needle in the CBD. Even more so when a small figure hovering near the bottom of the screen is highlighted. We have been watching her the whole time.
New Grace Millane documentary The Lie incorporated CCTV footage. Photo / Supplied
We see the date, the pair drinking and canoodling at various bars. We see them drunkenly going back to his studio apartment. We see them exit the lift to his room. We do not see Millane alive after that. No one does.
Here, the CCTV is replaced with video from a police interrogation room. A Facebook comment led them to Kempson and the CCTV footage of their date. He’s eager to help and describes a pleasant evening with Grace before bidding her farewell at a crossing near SkyCity. He is specific and clear on details.
He says he woke at 10am the next morning. The interrogating officer slides a photo across the table. Kempson looks silently at the photo. It shows him wheeling a suitcase into his building. The officer points at the timestamp. 8am.
It is the only time Kempson looks panicked. First, he doubles down on his wake-up time, then he fixates on the suitcase, which the officer has not asked him about.
He is not arrested. We see him leave the building.
From here, the CCTV footage tightens the net as the police investigation zeroes in. We see his movements, where he went and what he did after the murder. We see him back in the interrogation room and we hear his second version of the night’s events.
He says Millane wanted to play out kinky scenes from the film 50 Shades of Grey. Afterwards, he fell asleep in the shower. When he woke in the morning he discovered Millane dead on the floor. We see him cry. The tears as convincing as this story. We see him arrested for her murder.
Court footage from his trial shows him as an impassive observer. He doesn’t flinch as the prosecutor explains the force and time required to strangle someone to death. He sits coldly as his lawyer argues the “rough sex” defence. He has no shame when evidence shows he surfed internet porn sites while Millane lay dead on his floor. Or that he took photos of her dead body. Or that the very next day he went on another Tinder date.
He is emotionless when the verdict is read out. Guilty.
Then a montage as the now super-sharp CCTV footage exposes every last one of Kempson’s lies in disturbing, coldhearted detail as he attempts to get away with murder. Most horrifying of all, we see him coolly wheeling out the suitcase that hides Millane’s body as he leaves to bury it deep in the Waitākere Ranges.
The Lie is an excellent documentary about an atrocious crime. It shows everything that followers of this heinous crime never saw. It’s compelling but harrowing. With its extensive use of CCTV footage, The Lie meticulously and thoroughly presents its terrible truth.
