Depp v Heard Review: Netflix milks the same old sensational case

If you missed out on the drama of Johnny Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard's defamation court battle last year, then you can catch up on the whole soap opera in Netflix's new docuseries Depp v Heard. Emma Cooper's three-part docuseries brings nothing new or refreshing to the table other than what is already available on the Internet and known to the public, in fact, it brings less on the informative part. 

What is the docuseries about? 

• Depp v Heard, which dropped on Netflix on August 16, basically just puts court footage, social media reactions, and news clips together to present itself as a docuseries.
• The story is well known. Johnny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 claiming to be a victim of domestic violence. 

• While she didn't name Depp in the article, it was insinuated that he was the abuser. Depp claimed that this was defamatory against him and false. 
• Heard countersued saying that Depp was defaming her by calling her accusations false. 
• Given the involvement of two famous actors, their private life on full public display, and their dirty laundry aired, it got a fair share of public frenzy going. 
• The docuseries includes this part of the whole story too, as social media frenzy and public opinion played a big role in the case and perhaps its verdict. 

[ALSO READ: Johnny Depp will donate 1 million dollar settlement from Amber Heard to charities]

What does the docuseries want to convey?

Emma Cooper, who earlier helmed Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes and The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, for Netflix, told Variety that she wanted to focus the docuseries on the society or the public's role in the case. 

Does Cooper achieve her goal?

• No. Emma Cooper wanted to show the 'trial by public opinion' or the TikTok trial side of the Depp v Heard story. 
• But all she managed was throw up what she consumed on social media back into the docuseries, without any reflection or deeper exploration of the subject itself. 
• The docuseries stitched together - pretty annoyingly - the social media mood of the time, which was heavily biased against Heard, possibly run by an army of bots and strewing misinformation in the name of armchair legal experts.  
• Much of the docuseries is filled with clips of Johnny Depp supporters giving their commentary on the whole televised court battle, which included public humiliation of the woman claiming domestic abuse, Amber Heard. 

• The docuseries unfortunately does not explore the people behind the cameras supporting Depp, the influence of idol worship on such cases, or the impact of the whole case on the larger #MeToo movement. 
• It only mentions the possibility of social media bots driving the anti-Heard campaign and the #MeToo movement as almost an afterthought. 
• Given that when the Depp v Heard trial was going on, the public commentary was hugely biased against and vitriolic against Heard, it was also reflected in the series, which doesn't help the audience do anything more than either be gleeful or angry all over again. 
• Cooper doesn't even bother with a deeper exploration of the whole case. There are only brief references to the UK trial. 
• And the 6,000 pages of unsealed documents with damning details on Johnny Depp make a mention like a footnote towards the end. 
• While the world cannot expect a verdict on who is the liar between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and who abused whom and if both of them abused each other, the docuseries doesn't make an effort to make a conclusion about the social media frenzy and its influence either. 
• In a nutshell, the docuseries feels like an attempt at further milking a sensational case just like the people on social media did. 

The good 

• The docuseries does do a good job of editing because that's the entire format it is based on. It does an even better job of bringing the testimonies of Depp and Heard side-by-side. 
• The goodness of rewatching the court drama between the two actors expertly edited is only broken by the addition of the annoying social media ranting parts. Given that the docuseries doesn't really explore anything about social media and public frenzy, the online commentary just seems unnecessary. 
• Emma Cooper also isn't winning any favour from Team Depp or Team Heard on social media. 

Stream It? Sure, if you want to relive the drama. But the public knowledge and opinion on this case have now graduated beyond the ecstatic pro-Depp commentators to become more educated on the parts that were not presented in the Virginia trial in the legal case itself and the impact on the larger issue of women speaking up against domestic violence. 

So, if you are new to the story, you can watch the docuseries keeping in mind that it doesn't give a full picture and manages to just about scratch the surface.

[ALSO READ | The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Case: A timeline]