Review: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson

Directed by David France, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson echoes similar themes to his Oscar-nominated How to Survive a Plague, covering LGBT politics, police apathy and the courage of a community on the edge. 

QUEER SPACES, reads a sign by the Hudson River where legendary drag queen Marsha P. Johnson’s body was found in 1992. The camera zooms, the sign fills the frame. In the creation of queer spaces, this film shines; allowing transgender stories to take up space in the mainstream media. However, messy and lacking in clear structure, it feels as if France has tried to tell too many stories in this 1 hour 45min piece.

The documentary follows transgender activist Victoria Cruz as she re-investigates the death of Johnson, a founder of the LGBT movement. Ruled a suicide by police, many believe she was murdered.

Weaving together footage from the 60s, 70s and 90s, with an investigation into Johnson’s death, France succeeds in creating contrasting textures, emulating the bittersweet experiences of the transgender community. From the magic of colourful characters in elaborate dress, to grey court room steps and the black and white autopsy reports of cases gone cold.

Although coined a ‘crime documentary’, this part of the narrative feels lacklustre and despite the rousing orchestral music determined to create drama and suspense, is anti-climactic. It’s not as slick as Netflix’s galvanizing 13th, nor as gripping as 2014’s Serial. Despite the misleading title, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson is a wider commentary on the transgender experience and a prolonged history of trans-violence. The investigation into Marsha’s death becomes the springboard for a story about the transgender movement and its vanguards.

The story of Sylvia Rivera, a co-founder of the LGBT movement, is given equal weight to Johnson’s, and offers some of the pieces most evocative moments. The sense of intense injustice is palpable, clenching at your heart and making your body twitch with a need for action. France was right to tell Rivera’s story, but in trying to do both and give insight into narrator Victoria Cruz, he failed to do justice to all three. Marsha’s story appears to take a back seat.

In telling these stories of forgotten LGBT icons, France should be commended. This project however, falls short of Oscar-worthy.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson is available on Netflix from 6th October.