| Director | Jenny Popplewell |
| Writer | Jenny Popplewell |
| Runtime | 87 minutes |
| Genre | Documentary |
What Jennifer Did Review: The 1 hour 27 minutes documentary chronicles the story of the Pan family in Ontario who suffered a gruesome experience in the comfort of their own home. Based on a true incident that took place on November 8th, 2010, the documentary starts with the 911 call from Jennifer Pan.
She can be heard crying out to the operator, explaining the situation in front of her and her inability to help her parents due to her being tied by one of the three burglars. Later, it turns out that her mother and father were shot. Her mother, Bich Pan passed away on the scene and her father, Hann Pan, went into a medically induced coma. The scene turns to Jennifer in the investigation room where she talks about the incident and the people responsible for it. She says that the intruders told her parents that they ‘were lying’ before she could hear shots.
Bich Pan and Hann Pan moved to Canada from Vietnam many years ago to give their daughter a better chance at life. They were well-known for leading a simple life and making sure their daughter was following the best path. At the beginning of the documentary, it seems like Jennifer is a daughter who has suffered the loss of her parents in the most gruesome way but interview after interview, it seems like Jennifer has more skeletons in her closet than she lets on.
To the world, the Pan family was a nice family that lived a hardworking life but a closer look shows that there was a lot more going on between them. The detectives found out about her ex-boyfriend, Danny Wong. They interviewed him and learned a lot more about Jennifer and her relationship with her parents. He told them that they had broken up but still kept in touch due to some threatening phone calls. But after talks with Jennifer, they realised that the stories regarding the threatening phone calls were different – Danny does not know the people behind them but Jennifer claimed it to be his girlfriend, Christine.
The detectives quickly understood that Jennifer and Danny seemed to have more than friendship even after they broke up. The detectives discovered that Jennifer lied to her parents about her university life and even printed a fake certificate for them. These lies make them wary of Jennifer and they try to get her to admit to her wrongdoings.
In a shocking turn of events, Hann Pan wakes up from his coma and recounts the incident. Turns out, Jennifer knew the intruders and while her parents were tied down – she spoke to the intruders and acted friendly with them. Her father became the first person to blow the cover on the lies. With that information, Jennifer had no choice but to blurt out the truth.
She admitted to conspiring with Danny and two other men to kill her parents after three hours of interview with a detective. All four of them were eventually convicted of murdering Bich and attempting to murder Hann. Hann Pan was granted a lifetime no-contact order against his daughter. Later, they appealed the first-degree murder convictions and were granted new trials, with no dates set as of yet.
What Jennifer Did Review
Directed by American Murder: The Family Next Door fame Jenny Popplewell, the 87-minute documentary shows how a person can go mad in love and conspire a plan that can take the lives of their parents – the people who cared for them and raised them. The documentary had a great flow from the introduction to the conviction – there were a lot of twists and turns as we relived the case with the detectives and friends of the Pan family.
The documentary did justice to navigating Jennifer Pan’s life before the incident as well as after. The interviews show how she was used to lying and even till the end, she maintained her innocence despite the glaring evidence. We also got to take a look inside her psyche as a child under a lot of pressure from her parents to live the best life – causing her to lie to her parents about various things in life as well as latching on to Danny Wong for love and support.
What Jennifer Did is streaming on Netflix.
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