Netflix: Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story
DIRTY JOHN: THE BETTY BRODERICK STORY
This wonderfully juicy series has all the elements of the most gripping murder – as laid down by George Orwell in his 1946 essay Decline of the English Murder.
There’s sex, money, a middle-class wife murdering a professional husband and, as Orwell put it, ‘the desire not to forfeit one’s social position by some scandal such as a divorce’.
This most compelling of American murders took place in 1989. That’s when Betty Broderick (a masterclass from Amanda Peet in how to play a woman scorned) shot dead her ex-husband, Dan Broderick (an understated, terrific Christian Slater), and his new wife, Linda (Rachel Keller). Now aged 72, Betty is living in the California Institute for Women on two counts of murder and is next eligible for parole in 2032.
Everything seemed so rosy when the Brodericks married in 1969. Dan Broderick, who had qualified as a doctor, then enrolled at Harvard Law School – and became a superpowered lawyer in the gilt-edged world of medical-malpractice law. These early scenes in the Brodericks’ life, as he studies and begins his legal practice, are sensitively inserted into the series as occasional flashbacks – though the real action comes in the later years, when the murder is imminent. The Brodericks soon have five children and begin leading the ideal American life in the ideal American palace. Dan does so well – and becomes so pleased with himself – that he dubs himself the Count du Money. With his diminutive stature, full but uncertain smile, and his narrowed, 1,000-yard stare, Christian Slater is a picture of sly smugness and hidden insecurity as American Man Made Good. The Brodericks’ American dream fell apart in the most predictable way. In 1982, a 38-year-old Daniel Broderick fell for his 21-year-old secretary, a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant. So far, so everyday. But then, even without the added spice of the murder, first came one of the most acrimonious divorces in American history. If only Betty Broderick hadn’t killed her husband, she’d have been perfectly well off. And she’d also have had her place in legal history for her argument in Broderick vs Broderick. She argued in court that her work as a Tupperware saleswoman and Avon Lady to support Dan during his professional studies entitled her to a better divorce settlement. The courtroom scenes are particularly moving, with a naïve but determined Betty flailing against her super-experienced, legal eagle of a husband.
Every time the naturally bright but completely unqualified Betty tries to outwit Dan, he uses his knowledge of the system to defeat her. The series is a subtle illustration, among other things, of the predicament of the Second-class American Wife in the late-20th century.
So Dan stops her hiring the best lawyers; he gets custody of the children; he sells their house without her permission and uses abstruse law to cut the size of the settlement he owes her.
Betty proceeds to go stark raving nuts, in a way that makes your sympathy shuttle from her to Dan and back again – a rare thing in Hollywood, where baddies are out-and-out baddies, and goodies are angels. She drives her car into his front door, swears at him on the answer machine and breaks countless restraining orders. Her anger is wildeyed and extreme, but you can see her point in the face of her calm ex-husband, the cat that got the cream – and the hot young mistress and the children.
In Senna (2010), the documentary about Ayrton Senna, the tension was made strangely greater by our knowing the poor racing driver’s fate all along.
And it’s the same here: you know from early on in the series that Betty will kill Dan. Flashforwards from the murder trial are inserted near the beginning (don’t worry – it’s easy to follow). But that does nothing to take away from the steady, unrelenting adrenalin release the series provides.
That Orwell essay concentrated on nine infamous murderers, including Dr Crippen, between 1850 and 1925. Orwell goes on to say that, at the time of writing, in 1946, murders ain’t what they used to be. With The Betty Broderick Story, though, we’re as happy as ever feasting on sex, money and professional murder most foul.