Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House Review: An Absolutely Heartbreaking and Infuriating Watch

Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House Review: When a journalist lays his eyes on an old, dilapidated building inhabited by a woman with a white face, he is immediately interested in the house’s story. However, he could never guess the secrets buried behind closed doors. Now, 30 years later, the victim of the house’s crimes comes forward to tell her tale.

This true crime documentary series has 3 episodes, each with a runtime of around 35 minutes. It is based on the podcast Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House by Chico Felitti.

Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House Review

There is something to be said about true crime documentaries because they usually leave a lasting impression on you, as we see the worst of humanity coming out in every episode. Prime Video’s Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House is a disturbing watch that starts with an amusing mystery about a woman in a dilapidated building and turns into a horrible story about a woman being subjected to brutal slavery.

Margarida Bonetti, an heiress living in a posh neighbourhood, will make viewers take pity on her at first glance. Old, fragile women living under terrible conditions don’t usually make our senses tingle, but what starts as a hoarder situation slowly starts terrifying as the reality comes to light. The tone shifts, and we suddenly listen to Bonetti’s past that will leave you completely shocked.

Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House is fantastic, especially because we get to listen to the victim’s testimony from start to finish. The horrifying reality will give you goosebumps as you feel the fear and desperation that Hilda Rosa Dos Santos, the Bonettis’ housemaid, felt, but there’s another layer to the madness that one simply can’t ignore. The series does a good job of showcasing how abuse can make victims complicit and take away their self-preservation in ways that will leave people outside the situation shocked.

While watching the documentary, I found myself getting incensed over why Hilda didn’t just make a run for it because she had plenty of chances to do so. However, it’s important to realise that when you have gone through this kind of abuse for decades, it’s not easy to just up and leave. Abuse can change the way we look at the world and the way we react to things, especially for someone like Hilda who lived in an unknown place and had no money to go about. The documentary doesn’t address it directly, but the air is heavy with this feeling of desperation, as if there is no escape.

Thankfully, there’s somewhat of a happy ending, at least for Hilda. The documentary does a good job of adding real recordings from Chico Felitti’s podcast, making it even more disturbing. You hear Bonetti’s voice, and it’s so full of hatred that it disturbs you. You also question the world’s justice system and the fact that the Bonettis can run away from America back to São Paolo without a second thought. It’s disturbing to say the least.

Final Thoughts

Abandoned: The Woman in the Decaying House will make you take a long, hard look at the world and where we are headed. A woman is imprisoned in her employer’s home for years with food, clothes and medical treatment, and it somehow goes unnoticed by the neighbours and the police. No one comes to her help. It’s truly a heartbreaking thought and will leave you completely unnerved. The documentary does a great job of bringing the facts of the case to the forefront while making us emotionally invested in the people at the helm of it.

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