December 2024 Bonus: The Mole Agent
the true crime that's worth your time
The crime
Chilean private investigator Rómulo Aitken has a client who believes that her elderly mother may be the victim of theft and abuse at the mother's retirement facility. To see if there's any truth to the allegations, Rómulo installs Sergio Chamy, a recent widower in his eighties, as an undercover resident at the home.
The story
…probably sounds identical to Netflix's recent Ted Danson-starring sitcom, A Man on the Inside, and that's because functionally it is. Man is inspired very directly on Maite Alberdi's Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary, The Mole Agent, and really doesn't differ from the unscripted "original" in any of the major particulars; if you've seen Man, you know what happens in Mole.
(If you haven't seen Man and wish to avoid spoilers, skip to my last graf.)
And if you've seen Man, you know that "what happens in Mole" doesn't exactly qualify Mole as true crime. The "perpetrator" in both projects is a woman suffering from dementia who has mistakenly amassed a number of items "belonging to other people," and therefore isn't responsible in a legal sense; both projects treat "the accused" with compassion. The retirement-community staff in both projects is initially viewed with suspicion, then seen as doing the best they can to manage in loco pueribus for dozens of residents in varying states of ability. (Mole's "thief," a woman named Marta who never stops trying to get off the property and go "home," understands herself as a child and desperately wants her "mommy" to come get her. Marta's mother is of course long dead, but the care-home staff patiently pose as "Mamita" on the telephone in order to reassure Marta. Marta's fellow residents, meanwhile, just roll with her childlike presentation.)
I guess I could say something glib here about "the real crime" – the willingness of adult children and society generally to distance themselves from the elderly, the too-loud televisions, the awkward smells and forgetfulness, the all-around too-slowness. Sergio himself points out, in one of his "reports" to Rómulo (and Man has a couple of variations on the idea as well), that the PI's client will go to quite a bit of effort and expense with a UC "op" to "protect" her mother, but hasn't visited her once since Sergio's lived there. But I won't, because even with an aging parent you live close to and enjoy hanging out with, it's complicated, and Man and Mole both understand that complexity, and find the intra- and intergenerational moments of grace. (Sergio's "photo project" with his friend Rubira is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.)
But this here is a true-crime review outfit, meant to assess whether The Mole Agent is true crime worth your time – and despite not having a true criminal act driving it, I think it is. It's worth your time overall: good-hearted, contained (just 90 minutes), cleverly set up so the documentary filming doesn't make the care home staff or "real" residents Heisenberg themselves.
As well, elder abuse and scams do exist, and hanging a light on the idea that it's difficult to root out and prosecute these crimes – victims and witnesses may have variable memories or awareness; staff will put on "company manners" for relatives or law enforcement – is worth doing, even if that light is sort of off to the side of the story's main stage.
Mostly, The Mole Agent is compelling because it does what you want true crime to do. Yes, it starts from a misdeed, but it moves forward understanding that a crime story isn't always about its plot. It's the characters, the community and the context, too, that set a story apart from a transcript.
The Mole Agent is available on Netflix. Thanks again for supporting Best Evidence! A happy and safe new year to you all.