What Happened, Brittany Murphy?

Skilled documentarian Cynthia Hill weaves together a story featuring home-movie footage of a young and bubbly and adorable Brittany; clips from Murphy’s movies; the occasional re-enactment; news footage, and interviews with reporters who covered Murphy’s death, the retired Assistant Chief Coroner who handled Murphy’s case, friends and colleagues such as Heckerling and actress Kathy Najimy, and the mother and brother of Murphy’s late husband, Simon Monjack.

As another story of predatory men who exploit the vulnerable, Hill and her producers do a very good job of relaying the nuance and context of Murphy’s whole life, laying the groundwork for how someone like Monjack could slip in and do their worst. But where the doc fails on an exceptional level is succumbing to the temptation of including the tasteless freak show elements that existed in fringes of her life, and have continued after her passing.

“What Happened, Brittany Murphy” might please those with little knowledge of Murphy’s life and career seeking a true-crime story version of her life. For those who want insight into her significance as a performer and how this is a true Hollywood story in a way that’s sad and preventable, you might be left wanting.

The first part, in particular, feels undeveloped. ... The second part fares better, delving into some of the unpleasant realities of her life, including her drug use and the specifics of Monjack’s controlling behavior.

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.

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.

Murphy was exploited by the person she trusted the most: her husband. And the documentary is often guilty of exploitation as well.

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.

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.