Film Review: "Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso" (2023).

From the director of The Raincoat Killer: Chasing a Predator in Korea comes Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso. This crime documentary film directed by Rob Sixsmith. The 2016 cyanide-coffee murder case in Indonesia, involving Jessica Wongso and Mirna Salihin remains a mystery to this day. Has the real killer been caught or the influence of social media has sent an innocent person to prison? 

At 3:32 p.m. on January 6, 2016, Wongso, , a former permanent resident of Australia, arrived at Grand Indonesia shopping mall in Jakarta to meet her friends at 5 p.m., including Salihin. After making a reservation at the Olivier Cafe and doing some shopping, Wongso returned to the cafe at 4:14 p.m. and ordered drinks, including the Vietnamese iced coffee that allegedly killed Salihin. Wongso waited until Salihin arrived at 5:16 p.m. and during this time the drinks were hidden from the view of the security camera with shopping bags Wongso had placed on the table. Soon after arriving, Salihin took a sip of the coffee and complained that the coffee tasted horrible before losing consciousness shortly after. An ambulance was called to the cafe and Salihin was rushed to Abdi Waluyo Hospital in Menteng, Central Jakarta, where she later died at 6 p.m. On January 10, evidence of bleeding was found in Salihin's stomach during the autopsy conducted at Kramat Jati Police Hospital. The police claimed that cyanide was found both in the coffee Salihin drank as well as in her stomach. On January 30, 2016, Wongso was charged with the premeditated murder of Salihin and was taken into police custody pending trial. The Australian Federal Police handed over confidential files regarding Wongso's psychological state, amongst them a restraining order against her made by an ex-boyfriend, to Indonesian authorities. Wongso’s lawyer Yudi Wibowo denied her client's involvement in Salihin's death. On June 15, he trial began, approximately a month after Wongso was named a suspect. The nearly five month trial was broadcast live and became a national spectacle. On October 27, 2016, after one-hundred and thirty-five-days, Wongso was found guilty of the murder of Salihin by putting cyanide poison into Mirna’s coffee. She was sentenced to twenty years. After a lengthy appeal first being rejected at The Jakarta High court and then again in the Supreme Court presided over by Judges Artidjo Alkostar, Salman Luthan and Sumardiyatmo who unanimously turned down Jessica’s cassation appeal.

A series of archive footage, reconstructions, and more recent interviews revisit the case of the strange murder of Mirna Salihin in this true crime documentary. Though we applaud Sixsmith for a naked examination of a horror story and for eschewing the impulse to add any notion that Mirna's family found justice, we also admit that we have trouble recommending this to most audiences for those same reasons. This is a solid true crime documentary about a shocking and horrific story. The film details how detectives eventually uncovered the truth behind Mirna's death, and it’s fascinating to watch.

Simon says Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso receives:

Also, see my review for The Raincoat Killer: Chasing a Predator in Korea.