Dime a dozen — that is perhaps the most apt way to describe true-crime documentaries on Netflix. But every now and then, the streaming giant drops a title that may seem (pun intended) innocuously simple and straightforward on the surface, but scratch much below that and what emerges is much, much more.
That’s how one can sum up Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso, which dropped on the streamer last week. Chronicling the trial which shook Indonesia a few years ago and is still counted as one of its most perplexing mysteries, the film focuses primarily on Jessica Wongso, a young woman accused of murdering her close friend Mirna Salihin in the middle of a bustling coffee shop in the heart of the country’s capital Jakarta. Jessica’s supposed modus operandi? Mixing cyanide in Mirna’s mug of Vietnamese Iced Coffee, the victim’s favourite drink which the accused was well aware of.
With the help of closed-circuit camera footage of the day of the crime, talking heads and scenes from the nationally-televised trial that took place in 2016-17, director Rob Sixsmith pieces together the case, including what may have prompted Jessica to poison her unsuspecting friend in full public view. What is chilling, and sets apart this true-crime documentary from many others in the genre, is ample footage of a nonchalant Jessica smiling and waving both in police custody as well as in court. A number of motives come to the fore, including the fact that Jessica was reportedly miffed with Mirna for repeatedly telling her to break up with her Australian boyfriend. For the record, Mirna had got married just a few weeks before she died.
The sensational nature of the case calls for a compelling as well as cautionary watch, but it’s to the credit of the makers of Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso (the title is smart, with ‘ice cold’ proving to be a descriptor for each of the words that follow it) that they present facts and do not resort to gimmicks. Even though the case is complex and evidence is found to be tampered with, Jessica is found guilty and sentenced to 20 years.
What works for Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso is the fact that unlike many others of its ilk which rely on an episodic format, the running time is kept to a neat 86 minutes, thus keeping the viewer consistently engaged. The documentary is also a disquieting insight into the psyche of a regular young woman who few would believe could carry out a murder as calculating and cold-blooded as this. So who is your next coffee catch-up with?
