This in-depth investigation of Ireland’s most gruesome cold case led by filmmaker Jim Sheridan spans five three-quarter-hour episodes which pry into the truth and the warped reality around the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in the drive leading to her holiday home on the outskirts of Schull, Ireland. Using archival footage, witness testimony, and interviews with those closest to Sophie and the crime, Sheridan seeks some form of justice for Sophie and her family as well as international justice.
The Irish case was held up for lack of evidence pointing to the main suspect (as well as a massive wiretapping scandal) but a French court case moved on using the faulty narrative dismissed by the Irish court system as fact under the Napoleonic Code on which France bases their legal system hearsay is admissible as evidence.
While I do enjoy the mysteries behind true crime series, I cannot support the senseless focus on senseless violence or the adoration of killers. Murder at the Cottage is sensitive to this, not wanting to force pictures of corpses and violence in our faces while addressing those facts which need to be addressed. Ireland’s most famous unsolved murder is a brutal one, but the events which transpire before and after December 23, 1996, allow the viewer a fuller picture of the way the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier has shaped policing in Ireland, international law, and the lives of thousands of people in Ireland and France.
There are a good handful of negative reviews of this series citing boring narration, unrelated tangents, and no solutions; most of these people are openly woeful that Sophie’s corpse wasn’t the center of attention throughout the series. Those seeking a pre-solved mystery or gratuitous corpse viewing should be directed elsewhere as they will find no shocking solutions nor hyperviolence in Murder at the Cottage. This riveting series holds a surprising amount of nuance and is far from straightforward. Sophie’s murder is truly an unsolved mystery that examines not just the supposed guilt of one man but the system of justice and policing both in Ireland and France. Highly Recommended. Editor’s Choice.
What public library shelves does this title belong on?
Murder at the Cottage would be most at home in a true crime section, but it would also fit into documentary television collections.