Why Good American Family is set to be 2025’s most controversial show
Explore why the Hulu drama series Good American Family, about Natalia Grace and the Barnetts, could be the most controversial show of 2025.
Don’t be fooled by the title. Hulu’s upcoming drama series Good American Family is not about a good American family. The show centers on the stranger-than-fiction case of Natalia Grace and her adoptive parents, Michael and Kristine Barnett.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “the most controversial TV show of 2025” is a bold claim to make in February. But what I mean is that it has the potential to be, depending on how the show manages the subject matter, and whether it is able to remain objective in a tale of two sides.
If you’re not familiar with the case, here’s the short version: not long after adopting Natalia in 2010, Kristine and Michael accused their daughter of being a psychopathic adult masquerading as a child. Natalia’s experience was very different: she claims the Barnetts abused and neglected her.
Michael and Kristine had Natalia’s age legally changed in 2012 from eight to 22, before moving her to an inaccessible apartment alone. She later had extensive DNA testing to prove she was, in fact, a child when this occurred. And a lot more has happened since then.
Good American Family dramatizes the contentious Natalia Grace caseAlthough the Barnetts faced allegations of neglect of a dependent in 2019, the charges were ultimately dropped. This leaves Good American Family with two difficult facts: the case has never gone to trial, and the public remains deeply skeptical of the Barnetts (to put it lightly).
If you’ve watched The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, and its follow-up series Natalia Speaks and The Final Chapter, you’ll know that the Barnetts described their experience with Natalia as being like the plot of the horror movie Orphan.
They said she would wait at the foot of their bed at night with a knife, attempted to poison Kristine, and tried to harm their biological children.
But extensive interviews with Natalia, Michael (who has since turned against Kristine; he now calls her a “monster”), their son Jacob, experts, and associates suggest these claims are false.
In fact, it’s widely believed Natalia was subjected to physical and psychological abuse throughout her time at the Barnetts’ home, before being left to fend for herself as a child with a disability. Just to reiterate, the abuse allegations have never been proven in a court of law.
What we know for sure is the narrative presented by the Barnetts raises significant challenges for Hulu’s Good American Family.
Writing about the case is difficult enough when there are no legal files to draw from, and all the facts are alleged. But adapting such a controversial, emotionally charged story is about as easy as walking a tightrope with a blindfold on.
There be MonstersNetflixTake it from Ryan Murphy. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, though a ratings success, was met with significant backlash for its portrayal of the infamous brothers.
Despite the case going through the legal process – where Lyle and Erik were convicted of murdering their parents – the public perception of them has shifted dramatically since the ‘90s.
Opinions about their childhood trauma, including allegations of abuse by their parents, have made the case far more complex. Murphy’s series tried to capture this complexity by showing multiple perspectives, but the dramatization struggled to walk that fine line.
Granted, the gratuitous sensationalism didn’t help (the less said about the incest scenes, the better). But even if it hadn’t been a Murphy production, trying to give voice to both sides is no mean feat.
Now, I don’t mean to be a Debby Downer, but there’s also the issue of Kristine Barnett. Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has been cast in the role, with Kristine herself sharing the news on her Facebook page.
“Here’s to high hopes that the truth is finally told about my family as Disney releases the Good American Family starring Ellen Pompeo,” she wrote, an endorsement that received backlash from followers of the case.
HuluOpinions aside, Kristine is one of the most elusive figures, having shut down the opportunity to provide comment for any of ID’s documentary series. Portraying her on screen is going to be a tough task, not only for the writers but also for Pompeo.
As she told Vanity Fair in a conversation about Good American Family, “We’re coming up with our own version of what this story could have been, so this isn’t sort of a beat-for-beat of what their experience was.
“It’s really what we do here, I guess, in Hollywood. We make entertainment that hopefully provokes thought, and we take a set of circumstances and put our spin on it.”
What that spin will look like is yet to be seen, but there is precedent for nuanced storytelling in true crime adaptations. HBO’s The Staircase and Love & Death both took complex legal cases and presented them with enough ambiguity to allow audiences to form their own conclusions.
If Good American Family can navigate the sensitive material with the balance it demands, it has the potential to make it to the other side, so to speak. If it doesn’t, well, the show may just live up to this headline and plunge to the murky depths of netizens’ wrath.
Good American Family debuts on Hulu on March 9, 2025. And if you’re as into movies and TV as much as we are, be sure to check out our We LOVE TV & Movies schedule, where you’ll find a host of fresh content in line with Valentine’s Day.
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