More than just the standard true crime documentary that it seems to be on the surface, Johanna Möller – Sweden’s Most Hated Woman is a stirring exploration of the justice system that any true crime fan should make sure to see. Johanna Möller is infamous in Sweden, but her story is only now coming to American audiences thanks to Viaplay’s three-part documentary focused on her arrest and subsequent trial.
After her father was discovered dead and her mother seriously wounded in 2016, Johanna Möller and her boyfriend Mohammad Rajabi found themselves the chief suspects in the mystery. The three-part documentary initially follows the details of the crime and depicts how Möller’s trial became a spectacle in Sweden. This surface-level murder mystery steadily gives way to a more thought-provoking exploration of the justice system that only feels more timely with each passing day.
The grim details and mysterious aspects of Johanna Möller’s case make for an intriguing true crime story, especially once Möller’s inconsistent alibi raises more questions about her possible culpability in the case. Möller is an interesting figure, a seemingly cold and aloof woman whose confident nature makes her just as appealing as it makes her a suspect in the eyes of the audience.
However, this is all playing into the documentary’s true focus — which is actually about the inherent flaws of any legal system and the way it can fail the people its meant to protect. The focus becomes less about the nature of Möller’s possible crimes or her potential innoncence, but rather on the circumstances of her trial, her portrayal in the media, and whether or not she ever had a chance to escape prison time — regardless of her possible innocence.
This is where Johanna Möller – Sweden’s Most Hated Woman truly develops something unique. By making the audience care about the case and witness the typical portrayal of true crime stories, director Hugo Ullberger brings them into this story with a clean effectiveness that quickly turns morbid curiosity into righteous concern. It also presents Johanna as a human being in its third episode, a painfully personal touch that the documentary doesn’t shy away from.
A basic crime story becomes an exploration of a society as a whole, with attention paid to the legal maneuvers, press attacks, and public perception of Möller over the course of her trial. Even as the series symapthizes with Johanna, it never necessarily exonerates her either. This is a documentary with no interest in easy answers, speaking to its thematic interest.
This is what makes Johanna Möller – Sweden’s Most Hated Woman such a compelling watch. The documentary reckons not only with the implications of Johanna’s actions and the larger societal system that might have failed her, but also confronts the populace’s complicity with the case. It becomes a story about questions and why they’re important, refusing to give easy answers at any turn.
It’s a documentary that forces the viewer to confront their own role in accepting the given narratives of investigations, and how public opinion of the many can be turned by the work of the few — and what that says about the authorities that would rather break their own rules rather than admit mistakes. It can be a hard watch, but never a boring one. The execution by Ullberger is to be commended, playing into the conventions of true crime as part of a plan to explore a much more tricky subject.
Johanna Möller – Sweden’s Most Hated Woman doesn’t make stirring claims about knowing anything more than anyone else. However, the documentary does the important work of highlighting how the systems we believe in can falter and potentially even fail — and that it’s on us for watching it happen and accepting it.
Johanna Möller – Sweden’s Most Hated Woman is now streaming on Viaplay
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