Elizabeth Smart tells her plot in ‘Kidnapped’ Netflix doc

Twenty-four years after her abduction, Elizabeth Smart is opening up about her life following her rescue in a new Netflix documentary. Titled Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, the film recounts her journey from being taken from her bedroom at age 14 to her current life at 38, where she has worked hard to establish a sense of normalcy.

Elizabeth was only 14 when Brian David Mitchell abducted her at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City home. It took nine months for police to rescue her, during which time she was repeatedly assaulted by Mitchell.

Despite the cruelty of these events and the trauma that followed, Elizabeth shares a message of resilience in the documentary. “I hope that people who watch this [realise] that even after terrible things happen, you can still have a wonderful life,” she says.

Since her rescue, Elizabeth has focused on advocacy. She married Matthew Gilmour in 2012 and has raised a family in Utah while working to increase awareness regarding children’s safety. As for her captors, Mitchell is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His accomplice, Wanda Barzee, was released in 2018 but was later re-arrested for allegedly violating sex offender restrictions.

Last year in December, Netflix officially released the trailer for Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, and right from the first frame, it’s clear the streamer knows exactly how to pull viewers back into one of America’s most haunting abduction cases.

Netflix has leaned heavily into true crime lately, Missing: Dead or Alive, My Father, The BTK Killer and The Perfect Neighbor but Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart feels more intimate, almost heavier. Maybe because everyone remembers the name Elizabeth Smart. Maybe because her story still hits a nerve.

The trailer opens with investigators and family members retracing the night 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bedroom in Salt Lake City.

A quiet neighbourhood, a supposedly safe home, and suddenly a disappearance that rattled the entire country. Netflix builds the chaos slowly, letting police and relatives recall those first frantic hours.