'Con Mum' Review: A Dark, Cold and Jaw-dropping Tale of Manipulation
- M.N. Miller
- Mar 31
- 3 min read
By M.N. Miller - March 31, 2025
Your film had better be good if you’re going to spoil it—in this case, a documentary, mind you—in the title. Apparently, the filmmakers of Con Mum took inspiration from Snakes on a Plane. So, you know the final product has to be so good, so addictive, and so shocking that you’ll completely forget you’re watching a true crime tale.
With razor-sharp focus, Con Mum explores a criminal mastermind who doesn’t just push the envelope—he destroys it. This is the story of Con Mum: a dark, cold, and jaw-dropping tale of manipulation as callous as anything you’ll ever see in a Netflix true crime series.
The story follows Graham Hornigold, a Michelin-starred pastry chef who grew up in the system without parents. It’s a trauma that leaves scars—without physical wounds. The trauma of abandonment lingers, invisible yet permanent, shaping a person for life. So when Graham is suddenly contacted by a woman on her deathbed claiming to be his long-lost mother, his world is turned upside down.
To make matters even more intriguing, she is worth millions—an illegitimate child of the Sultan of Brunei. She wants to leave her “darling” everything, both because her cancer is terminal and to make up for giving him up years prior. That’s a double hook for Graham: the chance to fill the emotional void left by a mother he never knew and, perhaps, a financial reward he felt he deserved—despite already being successful in his profession.
However, as the months pass, director Nick Green’s film unveils a shocking truth that plays out more like a thriller—Hornigold was scammed. His so-called long-lost mother, Dionne Marie Hannah, left him holding the bill for over $300,000.
Con Mum is a Heart-breaking True Story of Cognitive Dissonance
It’s hard to believe Hornigold fell for such a scam. It sounds like the equivalent of receiving an email from someone claiming to be a "Nigerian Prince" whose money is tied up in a foreign account, needs your help, and will give you a portion if you send money quickly. Yet, you can’t argue with how Green presents the case, getting inside the head of someone who has been living with the pain of abandonment. Cognitive dissonance is when someone wants to believe a lie so badly to fill their emotional void.
What you will like about Con Mum is the way the film takes the usual, which Netflix has developed, and transforms it into classic genre clichés. The story is compelling and emotionally gripping, considering the human interest aspect that can expand and cause a domino effect in stories like these. However, the unique perspective of this film—about a woman conning someone into believing she’s their long-lost mother—sets it apart from the genre in a way I can’t remember ever seeing before.
Is Netflix’s Con Mum Worth Watching?
In the grand tradition of good-to-great true crime documentaries like Catfish and Imposter, Con Mum is a movie viewed through a fresh lens, unlike anything that’s been done before. However, you’ll walk away from the film feeling sadness for the victim, even pity, and something deeply human. It is an exhilarating journey with no easy answers that don’t pander to audiences, which is something you should appreciate.
Con Mum is streaming now on Netflix
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