Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Beauty and the Bester’ on Netflix, a Stranger-Than-Fiction True Crime Saga from South Africa

Where to Stream: Beauty and the Bester Powered by Reelgood True-crime documentary Beauty and the Bester (now on Netflix) made headlines recently when the subject of the series, Thabo Bester, filed an injunction to get the series’ release blocked. Bester is currently in jail, awaiting trial in South Africa for a few malfeasances – we’ll get to those in a minute here – and this, more than a decade after he was revealed to be the “Facebook rapist,” and imprisoned for murder and rape. It’s a wild story with a few jaw-dropping twists and convolutions, but after watching the first of this series’ three episodes, it might deserve a more focused narrative approach. Opening Shot: An establishing shot of a door bearing a sign: INTERROGATION ROOM. The Gist: Inside that room is Bester, and we’ll eventually learn that he’s being interviewed by a psychologist in 2011. He talks about the awful crimes he committed: “I did not feel like a normal human being anymore,” he says. Bester was colloquially known as the “Facebook rapist” for catfishing women with phony modeling jobs, then robbing and assaulting them, and in one case, stabbing a woman to death. We’re still in the opening “preview” section of the doc, where we learn that, strangely, Bester was often visited in prison by female admirers, among them Nandipha Magudumana, a celebrity cosmetic surgeon who regularly appeared on TV and had a large social media following on top of a wildly successful practice. One of the doc’s interviewees then compares the story we’re about to see to Bonnie and Clyde. Curious! Thus begins a parade of talking heads, among them journalists, a judge and friends, family and coworkers of Bester and Magudumana. We begin in 2022, when a fire broke out in Bester’s cell in Manguang Correctional Centre. Officials found a body burned beyond recognition beneath the mattress. Nobody was sure how this could’ve happened, but authorities proclaimed it “self-termination” and moved on. We jump between 2012, when journalist Megan Baadjies interviewed Bester in prison – she breaks down his tone, mannerisms and character – and 2022, when Magudumana turned up at Manguang for Bester’s body, claiming to be his common-law wife. Magudumana wanted the body and wanted it quickly, and she got it. From here, the episode jumps to the 2011 psych exam to an account from Pearl Thusi, who survived an encounter earlier in 2011 with Bester, and back to 2022, when Judge Edwin Cameron determined that evidence didn’t suggest suicide, and leaked that information to the press. The case was reopened as murder. Meanwhile, we meet Bester’s mother; same for Magudumana’s parents, and some of her colleagues, who testify that she wasn’t acting at all like herself in 2022. She had taken on a new foreign business partner named TK Nkwana, and began neglecting her regular business ventures. All this information builds to a big whopper of a reveal that, well, we can see coming from a mile away.  Photo: Netflix What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Beauty and the Bester is firmly in the realm of stuff like Making a Murderer, American Nightmare and dozens (hundreds?) of other true-crime examinations on Netflix (and, frankly, every other streamer out there). Our Take: It’s pretty clear that Beauty and the Bester’s remorselessly chopped-up, time-hopping narrative is edited for maximum audience manipulation – all the better to deliver twists and cliffhangers. And in the first episode, a twist that doesn’t require advanced calculus to anticipate; it’s two plus two and, as ever, the sum is four.  This story deserves better. The way it’s organized is cluttered and confusing, and would benefit from a more straightforward, linear presentation. Otherwise, Beauty and the Bester is an admittedly juicy, fascinating truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story with glossy, professional production values and the standard array of talking heads and archival materials. Outside the scattered structure, it’s a solidly journalistic recap of events that avoids sensationalist tones. The hope is that the final two episodes dig deeper than Wikipedia and find fresh, newsy material to share – ideally, Magudumana’s motive for getting involved with such a dangerous man, and the details of the prison escape (which has me wondering if she smuggled Bester out of the facility in a coffin). The desire for answers and deeper analysis is most likely what’ll keep us watching the series’ remaining 89 minutes. Sex and Skin: None in the first episode. Parting Shot: Magudumana’s colleague sees a photo of her with a man, taken in 2022: “I don’t know this Thabo Bester guy. This is TK.” Sleeper Star: So far, it’s Judge Cameron, for doing the right thing and opening the door for the press to expose a coverup. Most Pilot-y Line: Bester: “I read the papers and feel like they’re talking about somebody else. Not me.” Followed nearly in succession by Thusi: “He’s a psychopath.” Our Call: Although Beauty and the Bester may inspire you to take notes to chart the timeline – and who doesn’t want to do that? – its story is compelling enough, and its tone respectful enough, to keep us watching. STREAM IT. John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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