Good American Family review: Ellen Pompeo struggles to shed Meredith Grey in true crime drama

Walking into Good American Family, I was a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, I was excited to see Ellen Pompeo in her first major role outside of Grey’s Anatomy. As someone who is very familiar with the legendary character Meredith Grey, I wanted to see Pompeo spread her wings a bit in a project after she left the Shonda Rhimes hit as a series regular.

But even with Pompeo’s star power, I found myself hesitant to dive into Good American Family because of the subject matter. The show is inspired by the true story of Natalia Grace and the Barnett family, a narrative I’m very familiar with thanks to ID’s popular documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The docuseries is three seasons and thoroughly covers how Natalia came to be adopted by Michael and Kristine Barnett, how their relationship soured and what happened in the aftermath. So my concern was that I’d be constantly comparing the scripted show with the documentary. Plainly put, I feared it would be like reading a book before you watch the movie, and as many people know, that has the potential to be a recipe for disaster.

With all that being said, after watching Good American, I’m still left with a mixed bag of emotions.

Let’s start with Pompeo trying to get out of the big shadow cast by her own brilliant performance as Meredith and selling to viewers that she’s Kristine Barnett. Sometimes when an actor plays such a legendary character for so long, it’s hard to see them as anyone else. In the first two episodes of Good American, I kept watching as if this was the second act for Meredith in Indiana with a new husband and new life. This was aided by the fact that Kristine does voiceovers, just like Meredith does in Grey’s Anatomy. Additionally, because Pompeo at times delivers dialogue in a similar tonality to her prior role, it’s hard to see the differentiation.

But once the series shifted more or less into a big showdown between Kristine and Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid), Pompeo shed her layers as the good doc. I stopped looking at Pompeo as a surgeon pretending to be this stay-at-home mom turned entrepreneur, and more like the actual Kristine Barnett.

Speaking of Reid, I have to applaud her work. She effectively had me convinced that the scripted version of Natalia Grace was methodically layered and complex, and I wasn’t necessarily reminded of Isabelle Fuhrman’s Esther character from the movie Orphan. Both projects strike similar chords, but Reid effectively does enough with her character to stand apart.

As for Mark Duplass’ Michael Barnett, I largely found his performance solid. Similar to the perception I got from the real Michael in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, this fictionalized character tends to be a bit melodramatic and quirky. There was never a point where I considered Duplass wasn’t the Barnett patriarch.

Pivoting back to the story, my fears from having watched the ID documentary did materialize. Even with the scripted drama only being inspired by the Natalia Grace story, I couldn’t help but overanalyze each scene. In some cases, I questioned why certain creative liberties were taken when the “real” sequence of events or characterization would have provided an equally as riveting viewing experience, if not more. In hindsight, it likely had to do with trying to create more distance between real life and fiction as the series again is only supposed to be inspired by true events.

Now to be clear, the story isn’t terrible. In fact, what benefits Good American Family is that it largely lets Kristine’s perspective be the driving force of the show. In the three seasons of the documentary, Kristine never shares her side of things or gives an interview. So for me, Good American Family satisfies a curiosity in some ways about what the real Kristine could have believed happened in this whole ordeal.

I’d say for those who have limited knowledge of the Natalia Grace story there’s a good chance you’ll find Good American Family a fairly good watch, as you won’t have anything to compare it to. It’s even more exciting if you’ve managed never to see Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy. Plus, the pacing of the episodes leave little room for many dull moments. But if you’re like me and have seen both, you may settle on the new show as being just adequate.

Good American Family is now streaming on Hulu in the US and arrives in the UK on Disney Plus in May.