I Watched Depp V. Heard So You Don’t Have To

We never do things right the first time. When a news story breaks about a young, beautiful, famous woman and some powerful man, it seems to require a 10- to 20-year baking period before we can appropriately understand it. Contemporary coverage of Anita Hill paints her as educated and brave; the coverage of her when she first alleged that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had harassed her told a markedly different tale in 1991. The same goes for Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, and Whitney Houston, all of whom have recently had their narratives told anew in compassionate documentaries. Retellings of these stories are popular, and sometimes they have impact — Spears’ killed conservatorship remains the loudest example. And yet, as the genre expands, it still struggles to address anything more recent than the early aughts.

In that way, we can give Netflix’s Depp v. Heard — a three-part series about Johnny Depp’s 2022 Virginia civil suit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard — some bonus marks. This time, for once, the documentary didn’t take 25 years to make, or wait for its subjects to become tangential, or reclusive, or dead. As a Netflix production, Depp v. Heard also carries with it the prestige of other, more consequential reconsiderations, like Pamela, a love story, or Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me. But instead of speeding up the baking time that most women have gotten used to, Depp v. Heard replates the same undercooked meal.

The documentary gets lost in the details of their trial, so it’s easy to forget how it started. In 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, referring to herself as the victim of domestic abuse. She didn’t name names, but having recently divorced Depp, it seemed clear to some of the public who she was referring to. Depp sued her for defamation, and their case ended in the summer of 2022 with Depp being awarded more than $10 million in damages. Heard planned to appeal the case but ultimately dropped it, agreeing to a settlement. “I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder,” she said in a statement at the time. “The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimized when they come forward.” Brutal, then, that this documentary does the same thing all over again, just a year later.

It seems like Depp v. Heard wants to show (or merely remind) us how chaotic it felt to witness the trial and the internet’s response, and to argue that the case’s sensationalism made it impossible to adjudicate appropriately. It’s told almost entirely through archival tape, trial footage, news clips, and, of course, the worst part: YouTubers and TikTokers mocking Amber Heard, cheering on Johnny Depp, or otherwise proffering borderline (and sometimes directly) calumnious opinions. It is ostensibly perspective-free, telling you the story the way an algorithm would, presenting itself as unbiased since it’s showing you “both sides.” There are no contemporary talking heads, no expert voices on domestic violence or media or the civil courts system. There is no context. There is only Johnny and Amber speaking in open court, and then, the internet.

There is only Johnny and Amber speaking in open court, and then, the internet.

Because the documentary almost exclusively relies on the loudest, most rotten content creators that were live-reacting to the case, it mostly serves as a platform for that very virulence — perpetuating the same harm it weasels out of criticizing. Do you really care about what a former Bachelorette contestant thinks about Johnny Depp? How much stock do you put in the opinions of someone who won’t show his face online but who calls Heard unimaginative invective while hiding behind a Deadpool mask?

Early in the docuseries, a content creator being interviewed for a video podcast talks about how uneven the online response was to the case; it was clear that Depp had a disproportionate amount of support on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. But what does it really matter that all these strangers proffered so many false opinions about this one woman, that they wish her so much harm, that they have become conspiratorial and spiteful, if there’s no effort to actually correct the record? (Later on, the documentary casually mentions that many were probably bots, but just as yet another topic to pick up, sniff, and drop without real interrogation.)

Any issues with Depp’s own credibility are also shuffled around and half-heartedly addressed. Great hay is made during the trial and online about Depp’s accusation that Heard may have defecated in their bed; the internet laughed at such a crazy thing for a crazy woman to allegedly have done. Later, the documentary apathetically proffers the information that the couple’s dog was sick, and was perhaps the cause. Added as even further addendum? Depp himself had joked about pooping outside of her door so she would step in it.

Depp v. Heard does not use the space it has to talk about the harmful elements of celebrity, the power imbalance between this couple, their age differences, their income discrepancies, Depp’s lengthy history of drug and alcohol abuse, or even how domestic violence forms and mutates over time. Instead, it relitigates whether or not Heard told a lie when she said that for much of their relationship, she carried a particular makeup compact to cover her bruising. Other, more discerning viewers may have more salient questions. For example: How did she get that bruising in the first place?

Depp v. Heard won’t stick a flag in the ground for either party, or even for a perspective; instead, it wobbles and flops over on the side of a guy who texted his friend that he wanted to drown and burn his ex-wife. But that it framed itself as a reconsideration of a misunderstood legal saga is practically insulting considering the material produced. It is not a reconsideration, or a recontextualization, a reassessment, or even a second look with refreshed eyes. It mimics what we heard about the case a year ago — no new data, no new climate. It is an afterthought, and that serves as a reminder to women like Heard everywhere: Your story, too, can become just a poorly-told footnote in a man’s torqued narrative.