What Happened, Brittany Murphy?

 

What Happened, Brittany Murphy? is a 2 part documentary from HBO Max that recounts the life and sudden death of Brittany Murphy.

I remember when Brittany Murphy unexpectedly died. She was so young and talented, so the first rumor was that it had to be drug related. At the time she was under a lot of scrutiny for being aloof and unfocused so people just assumed she was on drugs. Then when the autopsy came out, and it was revealed to be pneumonia. That was hard for people to comprehend because it seemed odd for someone of her age to have died from this treatable infection, which tended to target a much older population. Shortly after that I remembered the rumors that mold in her home might have been a cause to her death. During this time, everything seemed so frantic and unsure. I never really felt like we got a true answer as to what happened to her, so this documentary did a great job at presenting a lot information that wasn’t originally detailed in those news articles in the early 2000s. 

The part I found most interesting was what was found on Simon Monjack, her husband at the time. I remember seeing articles that talked about how he was creepy but this documentary dug deeper into his past relationships, his secrets and his reputation of being controlling. The documentary also highlighted how Murphy’s personality drastically changed once she was with him. I thought that the filmmakers did a great job of putting these pieces together to show how Monjack could have potentially been a contributing factor to Murphy’s and his own demise over 10 years ago.

I hadn’t thought about this story in a long time, so I was glad to have watched it. It made me think about how you never really know what someone is going though and it’s not right to make assumptions about someone’s mental health or physical health. I hope this documentary will help people think twice before making snap judgement about others. I also hope this does what it did for me, which was make me nostalgic for some of Brittany Murphy’s most iconic roles, so I added Clueless and 8 Mile to my watchlist.