Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is a rare misstep for a Netflix true-crime docuseries

Los Angeles Times

“The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel falls in love with the crime lore aspects of the case, and feels more exploitative than revealing, like a production from the far reaches of basic cable — but with a bigger budget, more archival footage and a narrative stretched out over multiple episodes," says Lorraine Ali of the four-part docuseries from director Joe Berlinger. "And unlike other successful Netflix series that have tackled infamous cases from new angles (Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer; Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich), The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel fails to illuminate much about the circumstances around (Elise) Lam’s death, even if the story itself may be unfamiliar to many outside Southern California. Netflix docuseries chronicling lesser-known tragedies, such as The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez or The Keepers, should have been used as guiding lights. They infused the whodunit aspects of their central cases with dogged research, nuanced subplots and emotional attachment to the victims. The story about Lam and the Cecil Hotel rarely goes that deep, though it does feature interviews with a former hotel manager, past residents, retired LAPD homicide detectives, historians and amateur social media sleuths who are still obsessed with the case."

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• The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel takes until the final episode to get to the point: "After three episodes of unpacking the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam, the infamous Cecil Hotel in which she was last seen, the fraught history of downtown Los Angeles, and even several truly confusing 'web sleuth' theories about what might have happened, the new Netflix series reaches a perhaps unsatisfying conclusion: that the simplest explanation is almost definitely the right one," says Caroline Framke. "This hour not only addresses all the reasons why this particular case got so much attention, but why that attention complicated everything about it beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. It’s surprisingly self-aware, and occasionally very smart about the intersections of local history, public interest and the infinite possibilities of the internet’s involvement. So it’s really too bad that it takes three full episodes of melodrama and rampant conspiracy theories before Crime Scene shows its ultimate hand. If my job weren’t to watch and review the entire thing, I would’ve tapped out in frustration two episodes earlier."
• The docuseries features too many interviews with people who aren't really relevant: "Playing Whac-A-Mole with online rumors, by their nature murky and evasive, is something that requires greater focus than The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, with its uneven transitions between competing storylines, can pull," says Katie Rife. "There are too many people caught up in the aftermath of this case—you walk away feeling sorry for everyone involved, from Lam’s parents to the hotel staff to the bookstore down the street—for it not to be completely clear when Berlinger is entertaining a theory and when he is simply documenting it. Otherwise, this might as well be an episode of Ancient Aliens, where if someone is willing to say something on camera, it might as well be true."
• Alongside actual rigorous scholarship, Crime Scene wallows in pseudo-science and non-science: Crime Scene features an interview with an urban scholar who brings substance to the docuseries. "Berlinger knows that Mungin is as close to smart and accurate as the series gets. Smart and accurate may be nourishing, but it doesn't get people to watch a four-hour Netflix documentary," says Daniel Fienberg. "Alongside actual rigorous scholarship, Crime Scene wallows in pseudo-science and non-science. For whatever reason, Berlinger couldn't find anybody with even a superficial connection to Lam to appear on-camera, but that didn't stop him from getting psychologists to do absurdly in-depth analysis on her mental state on the basis of little more than social media postings. I felt legitimately embarrassed for every person in the docuseries attempting to do that, though not nearly as embarrassed as I felt for the journalist who has to talk about the Japanese horror film Dark Water and its American remake."
• It's worrying that Crime Scene welcomes the very thing it warns against: obsessive internet sleuthing: "Because while the online frenzy surrounding the case is all a part of the story," says Brooke Bajgrowicz, "the way these theories are brought to the forefront while the final facts are left toward the end could easily trick viewers into thinking there’s something more — that someone is lying — and there are more details to be uncovered. Keen viewers are less likely to get caught in this trap, but it is something to be conscious of when embarking on this journey, especially because it's so absorbing."
• Crime Scene differentiates itself from other true-crime series by focusing on issues such as poverty, gentrification and crime
• Crime Scene features a line-up of random strangers who didn’t know Elise Lam, either speculating wildly or floundering at how miserable the whole thing is
• Why director Joe Berlinger featured many online sleuths: "There were some very well-intentioned people who really felt a connection to Elisa and really wanted to solve her crime, and I think their intention and focus on her case really lit a fire under the Los Angeles police department, so I think it was helpful there," he says. "In general, there have been cases where web sleuths and people fascinated with a case have helped move it forward."
• Berlinger on why it was important to focus on Skid Row: "That’s where marginalized people, homeless people, people with mental health issues also were just dropped off and left to fend for themselves in this area, and what happened to downtown Los Angeles over the decades is as much of a part of the story of how people jumped to these conspiracy theories and wrong ideas of what happened to Elisa as anything else," he says. "Each of these threads are characters that we dissect how things actually came to be and actually turn the genre on its head a little bit by not leading into a sensational and the obvious while also giving the audience — to those who don’t know the story — the experience of those trying to figure it out at the time and why they jumped to those conclusions."