'Unbelievable': Real-life rape survivor Marie Adler gets 'closure' after one scene in the Netflix series 'perfectly' captures her struggle
A gut-wrenching series, 'Unbelievable' sets the record straight for the true story of a teenager who was attacked by a stranger in the wee hours of a March morning in 2008.
The story revolves around how the 18-year-old girl named Marie Adler (played by Kaitlyn Dever) from Lynnwood, Washington, was held at knifepoint, blindfolded, tied and raped for hours but no one believed her tale.
The eight-part Netflix series is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica article 'An Unbelievable Story of Rape', and the 'This American Life' episode of 'Anatomy of Doubt' and has garnered rave reviews for its sensitive and solid treatment of the grave subject.
Voicing their thoughts, many Twitter users shared their personal experiences after binge-watching the series and pointed out how the show chronicled why women don't report rape cases.
In a long Twitter thread, Ken Armstrong, a senior reporter at ProPublica, posted what the real-life rape survivor Marie thought about the Netflix series. "In Netflix's #Unbelievable, Marie is a teen who reports being raped. I was one of the reporters who first told Marie's full story. To me, Marie is not a character. She is someone who trusted me with her story, painful as it was," he posted.
Marie actually went on to divulge her feelings after watching the series. Revealing what she said, Amstrong posted: "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. 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 captured her struggle. 'It was, like, perfect,' she said."
He added: "The series shows how two of Marie's former foster moms doubted her account. Both later apologized to her. Marie forgave both. She kept ties with both. After finishing the series, Marie called both, to reassure them: The show doesn't demonize you. She encouraged both to watch," Armstrong shared.
"For Marie, watching the work of the detectives in Colorado, 1,300 miles from where she had been attacked, reinforced a sense she'd had since first she learned about them: 'I felt like they were my guardian angels, looking out for me'," he continued.
"And 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," he added.
Shedding light on his thoughts about the series, he wrote: "In the show's first episode, Marie, after reporting her rape, goes to the hospital for an exam. In the scene, we learn how many swabs are taken. Where they're taken from. And what Marie is told after — that she might start thinking of killing herself."
"Each detail is accurate. I know, because I've read the real-life medical report. The scene is clinical, unadorned... and powerful. Susannah Grant, the series' showrunner, wanted to capture how an investigation can become its own form of trauma. To do that, she let the facts speak for themselves."
He also revealed several unknown details and inhibitions of reporters when the story was picked up for a series. "Knowing this story would become a dramatized series, T (he goes by T) and I had concerns. Reporters become protective of stories and people. We want their lessons to come through and ring true."
"That's why I say that to me, Marie is not a character. Jeff Mason, the detective who charged Marie with lying, is not a character. He is a cop who sat with me and owned his mistakes, horrific as they were. T and I got lucky: Unbelievable’s cast and crew, it turned out, were protective of the story, too," Armstrong said.
"One of my all-time favorite shows is 'Justified.' It's executive producer, Sarah Timberman, became the executive producer for 'Unbelievable' along with @katiecouric and others. One of Justified's young stars was @KaitlynDever. She was cast as Marie."
"Dever told an NYC screening audience that she steeped herself in the story while respecting Marie & her privacy. She didn't fret over mannerisms or accent. She concentrated on emotion. On the state of mind," he said.
Talking about how Dever translated the character of Marie well on screen, Armstrong said, "I met Dever and other cast members at a screening in LA. I learned how deeply each had studied this case. Merritt Wever had me sign her book."
"The story 'ignited something in me', she told @EW. 'The responsibility of the material weighed on me heavily'. @MrEricLange was cast as the lead detective in Marie's case. He could have made his character a cartoon villain. But he didn't."
"Because the man he played wasn't. On the series, T and I are credited as producers. But that title is generous. We served as consultants. We didn’t see the first minute of the film until the production was wrapped," Armstrong added.
In the end, Armstrong listed the three lessons he learned after watching the solid depiction. "When I did see the series, the lessons were all there: The misconceptions about trauma, the confrontational tactics misused by the police in Washington and the triumph of police teamwork in Colorado."
