‘An Update On Our Family’ Review — There’s more to this mommy vlogger drama than meets the eye

A review of the new docuseries, streaming on Max now

In late May 2020, Buzzfeed and other news organizations picked up on a story that was bubbling under on twitter. As the country was locked down due to the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic, viewers online were engrossed by drama breaking all across YouTube: a mommy-vlogger named Myka Stauffer had adopted a child from China, and then she had him re-homed when he was too difficult to raise.

An Update On Our Family, a new Max docuseries from director Rachel Mason, explores Stauffer’s YouTube career and the ensuing fallout. It’s a three-part series, adding up to almost 2.5 hours of content; it’s a bit repetitive, though, and could easily have been trimmed to fit a two-hour film instead. As it was, Max released the episodes separately over three weeks, which felt like a mistake.

That final episode, though, is a stunner. There’s more going on here than initially meets the eye, so it’s worth sticking with the show — especially now that it’s all available to stream — because An Update On Our Family ultimately lands in a fascinating place.