Netflix's Con Mum Was Way Sadder Than I Expected It To Be, And I Have Thoughts
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SPOILER WARNING: There are some major spoilers about Con Mum below. If you've yet to watch the new true crime documentary, please go check it out with a Netflix subscription before reading.
I watch a lot of true crime shows and movies. I'm talking an unhealthy amount. That said, after watching so many documentaries about cults, kidnappings, and murders, I thought that Con Mum, a 2025 Netflix original wouldn't make me incredibly sad after watching, but that's what happened. The new documentary about a man reconnecting with his long-lost mother only to find himself entangled in an increasingly complicated series of scams and false promises was upsetting for sure, more than I could have ever imagined.
Now that I've had a few days to think about Con Mum and gather my thoughts on what was one of the more unnerving and maddening documentaries I've watched on the 2025 movie schedule so far, I have to talk about it and why it made me so dang sad.
Again, spoilers ahead…
I was hooked pretty much as soon as I pressed play on Con Mum with its story about London-based pastry chef Graham Hornigold being contacted by a woman claiming to be his mother who wanted to reconnect after 45 years apart. I kept thinking to myself, 'Where is this going?' So I had to find out, and I'm glad I did. There are cons and then there's what happens in this riveting documentary.
Over the course of the next hour and a half, I couldn't stop watching as I tried to figure out what was really going on with Dionne's story as layers to her story were peeled back to reveal even more outrageous claims (like she was the daughter of the former sultan of Brunei) and schemes by the mysterious 85-year-old woman. As it became clear that her absurdly luxurious lifestyle was built on lies and other victims' hard-earned cash (with similar stories involved), I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure it all out.
You can call it the 'Catfish' effect, and you can call it muscle memory, but I spent a large chunk of Con Mum waiting for it to be revealed that Dionne and Graham had no relation. I mean, so many documentaries and movies about con artists, grifters, and scammers end with a person not being who they said they were, and I thought this was going to be the latest addition to the list.
The signs were all there for this to be some legendary con artist who found a successful pastry chef online, dug around to find out he was given up for adoption as a baby, and had no contact with his birth mother. Dionne had a history of pulling off big cons, and was obviously a pro at this considering her lifestyle, and all her other victims' stories had me thinking Graham was just her latest target; someone she could take advantage of for a while and then split. I mean, at one point she was even going behind his back to con his friends and badmouthing him. I just kept thinking this was so random grifter thinking a few steps ahead before disappearing into the night.
But it was something far worse…
The moment in Con Mum where it is revealed that there was a 99.9 percent certainty that Dionne was in fact Graham's mother hit me like a wrecking ball. My heart just sank when this globe-trotting scammer with an incomprehensible number of victims was proven to actually be bleeding her own flesh and blood of everything: money, future, security, and the relationship with his own wife and son.
Watching this unfold, I kept wondering how could you do this to your kid? How could you do something like this and carry on as if nothing is happening? How could you lie about having cancer to milk even more money from him and everyone around him? As a parent myself, the thought of lying to, stealing from, and using my three kids for monetary gain is something I've never considered because that's not what parents do.
I'm not going to lie, I found myself getting angry with Graham throughout a large chunk of Con Mum. At times, I felt like he was willingly looking the other way whenever people like his wife or friends would tell him that he was being used by his mom. At the same time, I also kept wondering how someone could fall for one lie after another especially when Dionne's stories seemed too good to be true our outright lies.
But then I really started to empathize with the latest in a long line of victims by the prolific and frighteningly successful thief. Once I started to think more about Graham's trauma (both lifelong and more recent) and how his life was turned upside down just when he thought he was finally connecting with his mom, I felt like a heel being so angry with him about seemingly being tricked into abandoning his wife and child.
There were a couple of points throughout Con Mum where I thought things were going to work out for Graham and he would be able to pick up the broken pieces of his life and relationships, keeping his family together in the process. But that doesn't happen, at least when it comes to the family aspect. While it is true that the pastry chef was able to continue focusing on his successful career in London's food scene, he and his partner, Heather Kaniuk, decided to split.
It was really upsetting to see Graham lose a shot at life with Heather and their son (both now living in New Zealand), due to there being a wedge driven between them by the whole situation that unfolded with Dionne. He was trying to build a meaningful relationship with his mom only to have it cost him everything in the end.
Though Con Mum put me in a dark mood and bummed me out quite a bit, I still think it's one of the best documentaries on Netflix and definitely worth checking out.
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