Netflix‘s true-crime coffers continue to fill, and the streamer will soon unleash a limited series that looks to be a difficult but rewarding watch if the above trailer is any indication. In Unbelievable, Kaitlyn Dever (the Justified fan-favorite Loretta and more recently of Booksmart) portrays a teen who reports a rape and later recants her account after grilling from local detectives. From afar, two different detectives, played by Emmy winners Toni Collette and Merritt Wever, begin to detect similarities among several rape cases, and they resolve to blow the doors off the whole joint.
This story draws details and inspiration from The Marshall Project and the ProPublica Pulitzer Prize-winning article, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” The work by the authors of that piece, T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, received a boost from a This American Life radio episode, “Anatomy of Doubt,” and now, Netflix has adapted this story of resilience after trauma while packing in an incredible amount of talent. From the synopsis:
When teenager Marie Adler files a police report claiming she’s been sexually assaulted by an intruder in her home, the investigating detectives, as well as the people closest to her, come to doubt the truth of her story. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, detectives Grace Rasmussen and Karen Duvall meet while investigating an eerily similar pair of intruder rapes and partner to catch a potential serial rapist.
CBS Television Studios is also aboard this limited series with showrunner Susannah Grant executive producing along with Katie Couric and many others. Unbelievable will stream on September 13.
