Who among us, when we were kids, didn’t bother the strange old Geezer in the street? In some cases, you can’t help it, as there are some people who simply aren’t made for suburban living, scaring the neighborhood kids by growling “Get off the grass!” Any time an unwary child steps on valuable property. In doing so, they made themselves targets when it came time to paper someone’s house or Ding-Dong’s ditch. No one dreamed that the witch next door would make good on her threats.
Director Geeta Gandbir’s subtitled “The Perfect Neighbor” centers on the shocking case of one such Grouch, Florida woman Susan Lorenz, who went all Clint Eastwood over a fanatic. That’s a gross way to describe a real-life tragedy, which resulted in the death of African-American single mom Ajike “AJ,” but movies like “Gran Torino” have a way of encouraging violent solutions. This one didn’t, his support turned to a community protest by locals who were upset that the baffled white shooter wasn’t trying to be the black person.
Both formally innovative and philosophically necessary, GANDBHIR’s true documentary reconstructs this dispute—from the first 911 call to the final courtroom ruling—almost entirely from official footage, much of it taken from police bodies. The resulting thriller unfolds like a cross between “Paranormal Activity” and “The End of the Hour,” leaving the audience free to draw their own conclusions from the camera evidence. (The availability of this material is due to a revolution in actual filmmaking, also factoring in the Oscar-nominated DOC short, which was produced on The New Yorker Prize.)
Although the laws of self-defense and “stand your own” have long been used to appease killers whose deep (and often open) racism deviates from the lives of victims they view as scary or inferior. That’s one of many subtexts that rise to the surface in this emotional, thought-provoking social experiment from the award-winning director of Lowndes County and The Road to Black Power, whose film doubles as Litmus’ examination of the prejudices of private audiences.
Among its many layers, Gandbhir’s fascinating project is also a surprisingly consuming look at the irreconcilable differences between neighbors—a situation frequently addressed on daytime television, but rarely depicted in respectable films. Such disputes rarely succeed, and can often escalate to retaliatory and even deadly ends (my partner once had the brake lines on his car cut by the guy next door, who was illegally running a noisy auto rebuild shop out of his garage).
The irony here is that it was Lorenz — the potentially dangerous party — who was constantly calling 911. Police first responded in February 2022, going out to interview several neighbors after Lorenz accused Owens of throwing a “Do Not Trespassing” sign on her. Breaking away from traditional DOC techniques, Gandbhir does not conduct new interviews or attempt to recreate the incident, but instead uses Bodycam footage of the officers to present the situation. “This lady is always messing with people’s kids,” a neighbor says of Lorenz, pointing to the open lot where the black-and-white kids like to run around, to their neighbor’s great annoyance. “She’s bossy,” says one little girl, identifying Lorenz as an angry “Karen.”
Sociologically, the Karen phenomenon — where white women use their social status and privilege to dictate and demand how others act — can be challenging, because it plays on invisible dynamics. It is well established that Black Americans are at risk of being shot by police officers. Did Lorenz realize, every time she called 911, that she was putting her neighbors’ lives in danger? Is it possible to depend on it? The weaponization of the police by some citizens remains one of the unspoken ways this institution can be used to enforce not only the law, but also the remnants of white supremacy.
What we can’t learn from “The Perfect Neighbor” is exactly what was going through Lorincz’s head when the local kids became too noisy to concentrate. Questioning about separate police visits indicates that she shouted the N-word and other profanities at her young tormentors. But then, footage from her CCTV shows the children deliberately making fun of her, shaking their butts in her direction.
None of this is witnessed by the cops, whose every word is recorded (including their choices to describe Lorenz, who happens to be a much bigger nuisance than her neighbors). With each call, by the time the police arrived, the offending behavior had settled — not that any of it would excuse what ultimately happened, when Lorincz introduced a firearm into the equation.
This is the hardest part for Gandbhir to reconstruct, since the shooting happens off-camera, though the director uses audio from what appears to be a doorbell camera recording from across the street to give audiences a sense of confrontation—very different from the life-and-death scenario Lorenz describes .
Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to such a dispute. However, one has to wonder why this neurotic domestic covenant—which claims the right to “peaceful and quiet enjoyment of your property”—believed to involve the police in the first place. This, combined with the weapons’ role in fighting back, should give audiences plenty to discuss and debate. Meanwhile, BodyCam footage reveals Lorenz’s most insidious tool: the way she misrepresented the situation and attempted to manipulate authority figures when they arrived. Although police have been criticized in our culture lately, they come off like the good guys here. If only Owens had been the one to call them on that fateful night, things might have turned out differently.