What Happened, Brittany Murphy?
HBO Max | Release Date: October 14, 2021
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
3
Negative:
6

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
30
Washington PostAshley Fetters MaloyOct 14, 2021
Season 1 Review: The heavy-handed hints about murder and poisoning lead nowhere; Monjack, the film seems to conclude, simply helped create the conditions that allowed Murphy to get so sick she really did die of pneumonia. Read full review
30
TimeJudy BermanOct 13, 2021
Season 1 Review: As is, What’s Happening, Brittany Murphy? feels like an episode of Inside Edition smoothed out to become a prestige mini-binge. The line between vindicating an unfairly maligned person and continuing to posthumously exploit her has rarely been so thin. Read full review
20
The Daily BeastCheyenne RoundtreeOct 14, 2021
Season 1 Review: Murphy was exploited by the person she trusted the most: her husband. And the documentary is often guilty of exploitation as well. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterDaniel FienbergOct 13, 2021
Season 1 Review: What Happened, Brittany Murphy? uses the visual language of schlock television — the gauzy reenactments, jittery editing and heightened score — to produce … two hours of schlock television, more Hard Copy or Inside Edition than an interrogation of the aesthetics and ideology that let those outlets thrive. Read full review
10
DeciderJade BudowskiOct 14, 2021
Season 1 Review: What Happened, Brittany Murphy? is an incoherent, half-baked excuse for a documentary that chooses to disrespect and exploit its late subject rather than paying any tribute whatsoever to her memory. Read full review
10
VarietyDaniel D'AddarioOct 13, 2021
Season 1 Review: “What Happened” settles for the bleakest and dullest of Hollywood cliché, ending in a place that degrades Murphy’s memory while pretending to honor it. ... Director Cynthia Hill has nowhere near the control of tone or the insight about her subject to make it feel like anything other than, well, gawking at an autopsy. Read full review
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