The most popular movie on Netflix right now is a true crime documentary that explores incidents that may not even be crimes, and actions so vague that the law was never ready to address them.
The film "Crash" tells the story of 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla, who crashed her two-passenger car into a brick wall near Cleveland in July 2022 at over 100 mph. Dominic Russo, Mackenzie's boyfriend, and their friend Davion Flanagan died at the scene. Mackenzie, who suffered multiple fractures, survived. However, she was later arrested and convicted of assault and murder by a judge who ruled in a bench trial that the crash was intentional and that Mackenzie had been "hell on wheels." Her appeals have been denied, and she remains in prison.
Despite appeals, Shirilla remains in prison after a 2022 car accident. (Netflix) — (Netflix)
Mackenzie has become something of a social media celebrity, where armchair detectives delight in picking apart and reassembling her case, sifting through a trove of text messages, old social media posts, and snippets of phone conversations—some part of the original trial, others simply part of a fleeting online life, the detritus left behind after 17 years where TikTok becomes an altar you erect to your religion. "The Fall" is a story about an alleged crime, but also about the inner lives of teenagers. It's about what they understand, or don't understand, about life and death, and what the adults around them understand, or don't understand, about them.
As for the car accident itself, Mackenzie's supporters believe her story that she remembers nothing. In the documentary, she suggests she lost consciousness due to postural orthostatic tachycardia, a condition that causes fainting and dizziness, which she says she was diagnosed with in 2017 (no medical expert testified in her defense at trial). To believe she intentionally killed her passengers would require believing she also planned to end her own life, but friends and family say she never mentioned suicide and that she had plans for both the immediate and distant future.
On the other hand, prosecutors argued that the car's brakes weren't applied even as it hurtled toward the wall, and that the turn would have been difficult to negotiate if the driver had been unconscious. They suggested that Dominic was trying to break up with her, and that Mackenzie's behavior on social media after the accident was astounding—a series of posts that were at best insensitive and at worst sociopathic, seemingly mocking the deaths of Dominic and Davion.
I have no idea what exactly happened inside that Toyota Camry in 2022. None of us do. While the movie "Crash" is fairly objective, the other two TV movies, which I haven't seen, seem more inclined to pronounce the case innocent. But it seems clear to me that much of this case has very little to do with the events of July 2022, and that some of what was considered in court concerned the teenage years themselves.
From left to right: Dominic Russo, Mackenzie Schirilla, Steve Schirilla, and Natalie Schirilla from "Crash." (Netflix) — (Netflix)
Mackenzie, to put it mildly, is unsympathetic. An aspiring model and influencer, she reached the peak of her popularity after the accident, filming TikTok videos from her hospital room and posting concert clips from a wheelchair. Shortly after the accident, a clothing company somehow contacted her with a collaboration offer, and she responded with an enthusiasm that seemed misplaced (and, frankly, so did her mother, an overly indulgent parent who, at several points in this documentary, looks like she desperately needs a motherboard repair). For Halloween, she apparently dressed up as a corpse.
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But throughout The Fall, I wondered if the people making these judgments had spent much time around teenagers. Do they remember their past selves, when the slightest misfortune would make them declare their readiness to "kill someone"? Do they fully grasp that the world 17-year-olds inhabit is fundamentally different from the one they inhabit? Was their hatred of Mackenzie—who, again, seems thoughtless and short-sighted, not to mention constantly high—partly a reaction to the horror of the fact that this teenager, and perhaps all teenage girls, are complete aliens.
Sergeant Ryan Fox of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in the film "Crash." (Netflix)
While law enforcement reacts with disgust to a social media post in which Mackenzie calls herself "a girl to die for," her friends in the documentary patiently explain that the post was a result of Mackenzie's participation in a viral, meaningless trend—dancing to a specific line from Marina's song. "I post five to seven TikTok videos a day," one friend compared. "At this rate, I don't even remember what I posted yesterday.".
Commenting on photos of Mackenzie, apparently dressed like a corpse—a "shocking lack of remorse," as prosecutors called it—another friend, pictured in the exact same outfit, flatly corrects: "We were dressed like [American rapper] Playboi Carti. I think most people my age know that.".
One could argue that the timing after the boy's death wasn't ideal for an enthusiastic response to a brand collaboration. Or one could wonder if the 17-year-old, in some immature, distorted, and perhaps traumatized form, had come to the stunning realization that no one is immortal, and was therefore willing to leave Strongsville, Ohio, by any means necessary.
Shirilla's behavior after Russo's death (right) has raised questions. (Netflix) — (Netflix)
Like the 2025 documentary "Unknown Number," which chronicles an incident of online fraud among high school students, or the 2019 documentary "I Love You, Now Die," about a girl who may be responsible for her boyfriend's suicide by encouraging him to kill himself moments before his death, "The Fall" examines the digital lives of teenage girls as an anthropological study.
The film "Crash" is incredibly popular because it touches on many of the hallmarks of a good true-crime documentary: a beautiful girl commits a crime, in which case she should be punished, unless she's been wrongfully convicted, in which case she should be saved. In the footage, the Toyota repeatedly careens toward a brick wall, but no one knows exactly why. Everyone comes up with their own theories: she was angry, she was unconscious, Dominic grabbed the wheel, the brakes failed, they fought, they were alive, and then they died.
But all this armchair detective work overlooks how little we know about the banal behavior teenagers express in their various online personas. Mackenzie Shirilla writes that she's the kind of girl to die for, and that may or may not signify diabolical intentions.
While law enforcement appears stunned that Mackenzie continued posting during her moment of deepest grief, the idea that she could suddenly stop doing so is truly astounding. It's all a complicated story, and this is no country for old men.