Abducted In Plain Sight Review

Abducted In Plain Sight
2017 | 1Hr 31Min | TV-14 | Documentary | Netflix

Director: Skye Borgman

Stars: 

Jan Broberg

Bob Broberg

Mary Ann Broberg

Synopsis:

In 1974, 12-year-old Jan Broberg was abducted from a small community in Idaho. When Jan was returned 5 weeks later, she assured her parents and the courts that "nothing had happened"....enabling a pedophile to go free and paving the way for Jan's second abduction and years of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse.

Good lord, what did I just witness? This has to be the strangest story ever told right? I'm not sure how I feel about it still and I watched this days ago. 

The documentary about an Idaho preteen who was raped, abused, and kidnapped by a family friend right in front of her parents’ eyes. Debut on Netflix earlier this month and within two weeks since it arrived on the world’s go-to bingeable platform Netflix, it has generated buzz online and throughout the Twitter'verse so of course, we have to check it out. This crazy ass thing features an innocent, sympathetic victim while it demonstrates how easy it is for people to be totally duped; it sparks feelings of disbelief and outrage, and it contains enough mind-boggling twists to induce motion sickness. You will definitely feel nauseous while watching it! 

Once this one ended and my stomach settled I was left with a lot of questions about how Jan's process and how she overcame the trauma that she endured. How, for example, is she not furious with her parents for being such pushovers? I’m furious with them! My kids are furious with them, in fact, if they walked up to me right now I'm pretty sure I would punch them in the face! Jan says toward the end of the documentary that part of the way she learned to forgive them was by helping them forgive themselves, WHAT? Ugh. The lingering curiosity about how someone could possibly get over such horrible abuse is just one of the things that makes me confident I’ll be thinking about Abducted in Plain Sight for a long time. 

The most disturbing parts of this documentary are the things that Robert Berchtold did to Jan Broberg for years, without her parents or the law stopping him. But the most chilling takeaway from this mind-blowing documentary might be this: You never know what anyone is capable of doing in private. Buy the end we found ourselves laughing. Was it an uncomfortable laugh, or are we laughing at how dumb this family comes across? Only you can be the judge.

3 out of 5 Stars