[imagesource:Jackkowalski]

In 2016, when Maya Kowalski was 10 years old, she was rushed to the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, with an array of strange symptoms.

She had crippling stomach pain, “so severe, her knees were going up to her chest, and she was screaming,” says her father, Jack. Her feet also began cramping and curling inward, she couldn’t stop coughing, headaches nearly incapacitated her, and lesions appeared on her limbs.

At first, doctors suspected she was suffering from a rare neurological condition called complex regional pain syndrome or CRPS, but then Maya’s mom, Beata, 43, had been accused of child abuse due to Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental disorder in which a caregiver fakes or causes symptoms to make a child look sick.

That’s when things became increasingly nightmarish.

IndieWire notes that the doccie is bound to leave you with more questions than answers:

What would unfold over the next few years was a nightmare even the always-prepared Beata couldn’t possibly predict, a complicated story with a heartbreaking — and wholly unfinished — conclusion that should terrify everyone. First-time feature filmmaker Henry Roosevelt attempts to unpack what happened to the Kowalskis (and, as the film eventually alleges, what has happened to many other American families) in the documentary “Take Care of Maya,” a wrenching and ultimately incomplete look at an unbelievable true story.

The review goes on:

If the shades of this story — sick kid, dedicated mom, a family tale with unexpectedly wide implications — sounds familiar, perhaps you’ve already read Dyan Neary’s excellent 2022 article in The Cut or one of Daphne Chen’s pieces from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and know where this story ends. And while Roosevelt doesn’t try to obscure the tragedy that consumes the documentary’s final act, the pains with which the filmmaker goes to unspool his film in a linear fashion, all the better to attempt to find the truth in a complex story, are a wise choice.

In another of the trailers, Beata speaks with a parent advocate counselling her about how to get Maya back after they were separated due to the allegations:

After more than 87 days without her daughter, Beata died by suicide. “I’m sorry,” Beata wrote in an email discovered after her death, per PEOPLE, “but I no longer can take the pain of being away from Maya and being treated like a criminal. I cannot watch my daughter suffer in pain and keep getting worse.”

Maya has been in her father’s care and the family has filed a lawsuit against Johns Hopkins, with the trial starting in September.

What happened to the Kowalski’s has (and will likely only continue to) inspire all kinds of controversy, and the doccie, coming out on June 19 on Netflix, does very little to draw any real conclusions. You’re going to have to decide for yourself.

[source:indiewire&people]