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There are medical nightmares, and there are legal nightmares. The story at the heart of Take Care of Maya encompasses both. The new Netflix documentary, premiering June 19, presents a damning account of how a sort of hospital-run child abuse/CPS mill allegedly destroyed one family in slow motion, keeping a sick girl from her parents until one of her parents could no longer take it. Like most documentaries, this one will play differently if you haven’t been following the real-life story, so continue reading with caution if you value the element of surprise.
From early childhood, Maya Kowalski lived with excruciating pain, often so great she was unable to walk. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Her parents, Jack and Beata, searched frantically for answers, until a doctor eventually presented a diagnosis of CRPS, or complex regional pain syndrome. The doctor prescribed heavy doses of the dissociative drug ketamine, which is used to treat neuropathic pain; the Kowalski family even traveled to Monterrey, Mexico, where Maya was put in a ketamine coma. The treatment seemed to work… until it didn’t. Desperate, Maya’s parents took her to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida – whereupon the hospital accused Beata Kowalski of child abuse and the state took custody of Maya. Prevented from seeing her daughter over a period of three months, Beata grew increasingly despondent and ultimately committed suicide.
It’s a strange, brutally sad story, told here primarily through audio recordings, depositions, interviews with surviving members of the Kowalski family (including Maya, who never alleged any abuse), and wordless reenactments. With the hospital and its primary representative in the case, Dr. Sally Smith, refusing to cooperate with the filmmakers, Take Care of Maya is necessarily one-sided. That side is rendered with sympathy and sensitivity, and a lingering, frustratingly unanswered question: How exactly does something like this happen?
Director Henry Roosevelt and his team, including executive producer and two-time Oscar nominee Liz Garbus, are as interested in the pain inflicted on the Kowalski family as they are the Kafka-like machinations of the medical and CPS system they confront. John Kowalski comes across as a regular, decent man, now shattered. Now 17, Maya, along with her father and brother, seeks justice from the legal system, which the film presents as being complicit with the hospital in throwing up as many roadblocks as possible. We meet a reporter, Daphne Chen, who helped uncover a pattern involving Dr. Smith, All Children’s, and a series of families with similar stories to tell: They took their children in for treatment and were subsequently accused of abuse, in some cases locked up for long stretches, their lives destroyed. Are they all innocent? That’s impossible to say. What Take Care of Maya makes clear is the staggering lack of accountability on the part of the accusers. The film paints a portrait of a family left in limbo to suffer in perpetuity through no fault of their own.
Despite its strong emotional appeal, Take Care of Maya at times leaves the viewer wanting just a little bit more. The closing credits are accompanied by footage of other families telling their own horror stories similar to what the Kowalski clan are enduring, and while the film itself uses some such material, it could use a bit more emphasis. The family’s experience is well-covered, but the bigger story wants more of a smoking gun to tie it all together. Filmmakers certainly can’t provide what doesn’t exist, but with no cooperation from Dr. Smith and All Children’s, the need for a wider perspective grows greater. What is the system’s ultimate motive here? Is it financial? If so, how? There is a sense of mystery at the heart of Take Care of Maya that sticks in the craw a little.
Then again, perhaps this desire stems from the film’s effectiveness in making the viewer care enough to want more. The Kowalski family certainly does. Take Care of Maya allows you to feel the agony and anger of a nightmare from which they can’t awaken. The film leaves a bitter taste, along with the hope that they eventually get the closure that the film knows it can’t supply.
