For the first half hour, it’s difficult to tell whether Sex Crimes Unit will have the momentum to make it through to the credits, and an impatient director might have shoved some glossy speed and bass-heavy beats into the proceedings. Fortunately, Lisa F. Jackson was wise enough to let her subject matter do the talking. The result is a documentary that is as without frills as its title. It is, in many ways, an anti-Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The television show may be injected with drama, but this documentary is far more impactful. With effortless timing, it weaves together four separate stories – retelling the history of a 16-year-old sex crime that was solved because of DNA, following 2 cases in real time, and giving a little history of a division of the New York District Attorney’s office that was the first of its kind (yet is only 40 years old).

“We have decided how sad it is for others that they cannot appreciate our genius.” In 1954, a murder is committed by two girls who have formed a deadly friendship. The movie opens with the pair running for help while Pauline’s mother lies on a garden path, her head smashed in. Juliet Hume and Pauline Parker became each other’s entire world almost from the time they met when Juliet moved to Christchurch, New Zealand. The two girls, both outsiders, are obsessed with singer Mario Lanza and attracted to the dangerous Third Man character played by Orson Wells. Hollywood is their Mecca. They retreat into a fantasy called the Fourth World fueled by their stories of the mythical kingdom Borovnia. In Borovnia they are royalty, living with the figures in their imaginations. In the Fourth World their favorite movie actors are worshiped as saints.

According to the producer, the project should have a script by this week and be on track to roll cameras early next year.