Overview
When Jack and Beata Kowalski are wrongfully accused of child abuse after their 10-year-old daughter Maya visits the ER, a nightmare unfolds.
Reviews
6 min readThe System Was the Villain—Until It Wasn’t
I kept waiting for the moment when Take Care of Maya would step back, take a breath, and ask the hard questions. It never came. What I got instead was a two-hour gut punch—one that left me furious, exhausted, and, by the end, oddly unsettled about why I’d been so thoroughly moved.
The film follows the Kowalski family as they spiral into a bureaucratic nightmare after their 10-year-old daughter, Maya, is hospitalized with symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). What begins as a medical mystery quickly morphs into a Kafkaesque ordeal: doctors, convinced Maya’s mother Beata is fabricating her illness (a suspicion of Munchausen by proxy), call in child protective services.
Maya is separated from her parents, subjected to invasive evaluations, and placed in state custody—all while her condition visibly deteriorates. The film’s access is intimate, almost claustrophobic. We’re in the hospital rooms, the courtrooms, the family’s living room as they unravel.
The camera lingers on Maya’s small, trembling body, on Beata’s frantic pleas, on Jack’s quiet devastation. It’s impossible not to feel their terror.
And yet. There’s a moment about halfway through that should have been a warning. A deposition scene, shot in stark, unflattering light, shows a hospital administrator calmly justifying the decision to keep Maya in state care.
The framing is damning—her face is a mask of institutional indifference, her words clinical, detached. It’s the kind of scene that makes you want to scream at the screen. But then I paused.
The film had already shown us Beata’s text messages, her desperate research into ketamine treatments, her insistence that Maya’s pain was real. What it hadn’t shown us was the hospital’s full medical records, the independent evaluations, the moments when doctors might have genuinely feared for Maya’s safety. The film treats these omissions as irrelevant.
I’m not so sure.
This is where Take Care of Maya becomes less a documentary and more a moral fable. Director Henry Roosevelt isn’t just telling a story; he’s picking a side. The film’s power comes from its refusal to equivocate.
The system, it argues, is broken—rigid, dehumanizing, quick to punish parents who dare to question medical authority. And in this case, that argument is compelling. The footage of Maya, gaunt and crying, begging to go home, is heartbreaking.
Audience Opinions
"A harrowing, emotionally crushing portrayal of a family’s ordeal that inspires outrage at systemic failures while drawing criticism for a biased, incomplete account of the case."
The film hits hard emotionally, with countless viewers describing feeling gutted, furious, and shaken by what happens to Maya and her family, and valuing how starkly it exposes problems in healthcare and child protection. latestnetflix.com's read is that at the same time, a substantial group feels the documentary is too one-sided and omits key context, leaving major questions about medical decisions, the mother’s behavior, and the legal battle unresolved.
- Intense emotional impact Described as heartbreaking, devastating, and exhausting, the story leaves many in tears and deeply affected long after it ends.
- Strong empathy for the family Close access to Maya and her parents creates a vivid sense of their fear, love, and desperation, making the family’s suffering feel very immediate.
- Systemic issues spotlighted Draws attention to conflicts of interest, rigid child-abuse protocols, and dehumanizing institutional behavior that can destroy families.
- Engaging and gripping The narrative pacing and structure keep viewers absorbed, with several describing being unable to look away despite how painful it is to watch.
- Perceived one-sided bias A notable number of viewers feel the film tells almost exclusively the family’s side, leaving out evidence and arguments that might complicate the story.
- Missing key context Questions about medication doses, prior medical history, hospital decision-making, and the origins of on-screen messages are left largely unexplained.
- Trust issues with framing Some viewers, after researching the case, conclude that the documentary selectively shapes facts, with a few going so far as to suspect medical child abuse that the film downplays or ignores.
- Limited closure or balance The lack of fully explored opposing perspectives and outcomes makes the story feel unresolved and, for critical viewers, like an incomplete picture rather than a thorough investigation.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsA hospital lawyer called it a one-sided movie.
On 29 October 2025, Florida's Second District Court of Appeal erased the nine-figure judgment that had followed Netflix's Take Care of Maya. Ethen Shapiro, for Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, thanked the judges and aimed a sentence at the film. latestnetflix.com's take is that "A one-sided movie is no substitute for a fair judicial process," he said.
The documentary had been streaming since 19 June 2023. Henry Roosevelt premiered it in Tribeca's Documentary Competition on 10 June, 103 minutes, with producer Caitlin Keating and executive producers including Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus. Netflix's Tudum page warned that the film details child-abuse accusations, suicide, and pediatric pain, and said it is told from the Kowalski family's point of view. ,
The case under the movie is documented. In October 2016, Jack Kowalski took 10-year-old Maya to the ER at All Children's in St. Petersburg for pain tied to a CRPS diagnosis. Staff, uneasy about high-dose ketamine and about Beata Kowalski in the emergency room, called Florida's abuse hotline. A judge sheltered Maya at the hospital. Fox 13 reported she had no physical contact with her mother. After 87 days, Beata died by suicide. , ,
Then a jury, then a smaller number, then a do-over.
Roosevelt's film landed in June. The civil trial opened in Venice, Florida, in late September. On 9 November 2023, after eight weeks of testimony and two days of deliberations, jurors found the hospital liable on the claims that remained. Compensatory damages were $211,451,174. Punitive damages added $50 million. Combined, more than $261 million. Maya told Fox 13, "To me, it was about the answer, knowing that my mom was right. I want people to know that she wasn't harming me at all." She added, "I mean, for the first time, I feel like I got justice."
A judge later cut the award to $213 million, calling parts of it excessive. The hospital appealed. The 2025 panel said the trial court had misread Florida's good-faith reporting immunity and let inflammatory testimony about court-ordered visitation bans into the record. A new trial was ordered on remaining counts. Nick Whitney, for the Kowalskis, said the family would persevere and pointed to a concurring opinion that the hospital "exploited their position with full knowledge that Maya, a 10-year-old child, would not be able to endure such outrageous conduct." ,
In July 2024 the movie picked up News and Documentary Emmy nominations for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Research. Hollywood Reporter listed Story Syndicate and Wise Fool as the producing banners. Shapiro's line is what the hospital wants remembered. The family still has Maya's November 2023 quote on camera. The dollars did not stick. The retrial is the next public fight. ,
The official trailer is Jack in an ER doorway, and the moment a parent is told to leave.
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