The Gabby Petito Story is a crime drama film that was produced by Lifetime and directed by Thora Birch. The film follows Gabby Petito as she embarks on a road trip across the country with her fiance Brian Laundrie in a van.
What begins as a happy adventure for two people in love quickly turns into a terrifying one for Gabby, who begins to find Laundrie’s behavior to be problematic along the way.
The plot of the 2022 film, which stars Skyler Samuels from ‘The Gifted’ as Gabby and Evan Hall as Laundrie, follows the couple as they navigate the difficulties that develop between one another, which ultimately rewrite Gabby and Laundrie’s destinies. The realistic study of Gabby’s life, which brings to mind a number of other true-crime films and TV shows, must have made the audience hungry to learn about the film’s background and where it came from. Now, let me fill you in on all you need to know about that topic!
“The Gabby Petito Story”: Is The Movie Based On A Real-Life Event?
The film “The Gabby Petito Story” does, in fact, draw inspiration from real events. The events leading up to and following the death of Gabby Petito, who was reported missing in September of 2021, are the focus of this movie. Gabby spent her entire life in the town of Blue Point, New York, where she was born. Reports state that Gabby began dating Brian Laundrie in March 2019, and that the couple became engaged the following year in 2020.
The couple finished their first trip across the country in 2020, which took them from New York to California, and then began their second trip in July of 2021. A confrontation between Laundrie and Gabby was reportedly the subject of a call to 9-1-1 on August 12, 2021. Officials from the police department decided to keep them apart for the night.
The last post that Gabby ever made on her Instagram account was on August 25, 2021, the same day that her and Laundrie’s van was seen in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. After about a week had passed, Laundrie went back to his house by himself, without his fiancee.
Laundrie, who allegedly refused to participate with the inquiry, became a person of interest in the abduction of Gabby after her mother made a missing person report approximately ten days after Gabby went missing. After a week had passed, it was discovered that Gabby was missing, and the search for Laundrie, who had also vanished, began in Carlton Reserve. The bones of a human being were found in the area around Grand Teton National Park on September 19, 2021.
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As time went by, it was determined that the remains were indeed those of Gabby, and an autopsy determined that the cause of death was a homicide brought on by “blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangling,” as stated in the report that was compiled by the FBI. Laundrie was the subject of a warrant for her arrest. The remains of a human being were discovered in Carlton Reserve on October 20, 2021, and the FBI determined the next day that those bones belong to Laundrie. Attorney Steven Bertolino claims that Laundrie took his own life by shooting himself in the head with a gun. Laundrie’s family is devastated by this news. On January 21, 2022, the facts behind Gabby’s murder were exposed to the public for the first time. According to the report compiled by the FBI, Laundrie admitted his guilt for the murder of Gabby in written remarks that were discovered in a notebook that belonged to him.
What Does The Director Say About The Movie?
The documentary directed by Thora Birch makes an effort to retrace the events leading up to Gabby’s death by investigating the true causes of the murder rather than simply showing those events. “It is essential to emphasize that the events that took place are not the focus of this tale. It is important to understand what transpired. The primary focus of this narrative is on analyzing Gabby and Brian’s relationship up until the point where they are now. Something along the lines of, “How did they become lost in the woods on that terrible evening?” What caused all of that to take place?’” Skyler Samuels provided the following explanation to ET Online. The actress went on to say that “because that’s the element that wasn’t talked about in all this media attention of their disappearances and their deaths, and that’s really what we’re focused on.”
Thora Birch considers the film that she directed to be a “cautionary story” for people who have been through events that are comparable to those that led to Gabby’s passing. The director also has high expectations that the movie would serve as a “wake-up call” for those in similar situations. According to Birch, “there are many, many, many Gabby Petitos out there,” as stated in the same interview with ET Online. This, according to Birch, is one of the reasons why she believes that her film is significant. On the other hand, Gabby’s family has been quite clear that they will not be participating in the Lifetime movie in any way.
“We thought it would be important for our followers to be aware that the Lifetime movie about Gabby Petito has no relation to the Petito family, nor did they grant their okay for the movie,” said the Petito family. In a statement that was distributed by The AWARE Foundation, Gabby’s family expressed their gratitude to Lifetime for producing the movie on their own initiative. A number of people on social media have claimed that Lifetime is “profiting off” of Gabby’s death, which prompted the network to issue a statement in response to the widespread backlash to the movie.
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