The Girl from Plainville Review: The Series With Elle Fanning Based On A True Story

Starring: Elle Fanning, Chloë Sevigny, Colton Ryan, Cara Buono, Kai Lennox

Director: Lisa Cholodenko

Streaming Platform: Hulu

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (Three and half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

The Girl From Plainville promises to be talked about a lot: based on a true story, the eight-episode series tells the mysterious path that led Conrad to take his own life, presumably pushed by his girlfriend. Michelle. If a very particular relationship is established between the two boys from the beginning, the evolution of their long-distance relationship becomes morbid in the five years that follow and based above all on obsessive texting, which would have slowly and inexorably pushed Conrad, suffering from mental instability and depression, to kill himself by inhaling carbon monoxide in 2014.

Released in the United States on Hulu at the end of March, in Italy, it reaches the middle of May on the streaming platform Hulu, with its protagonists including Elle Fanning in the role of Michelle Carter, the girl suspected and then convicted of involuntary instigation to commit suicide by her boyfriend, Colton Ryan in the role of Conrad “Coco” Roy, the victim of the crime by not always clear precedents, Chloë Sevigny to play Lynn Roy, the boy’s mother with a fundamental role in the management of the investigation by the police.

The Girl From Plainville Review: The Story

Created by Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus, the Hulu Original series tells (taking some liberties for dramatic purposes) the facts and characters of this complex and sadly symbolic story. The story unfolds mainly on two distinct temporal planes, which alternate in the story: 2014 and the days following Conrad’s suicide, then returning to 2012 to stage the beginning and development of the problematic relationship between the boy and Michelle. The great challenge of creators and director Lisa Cholodenko – behind the camera for many of the episodes – was to build a show that relies almost entirely on the study of the two psychologies, attempting to develop the game to the mental and emotional massacre that Carter voluntarily produced against by Roy.

A very interesting attempt as it is forced to rely on the total or almost total absence of real action: The Girl From Plainville stages the more than common life lived by the two young people, in particular by a girl whose need for attention gradually becomes detachment. from the reality of the facts. The mechanisms that regulate Michelle’s deviant thoughts and actions in many cases mean are the focal point of the show, willing to risk introducing the audience to a complex, ambiguous and repulsive character in the performance of her small, devious machinations.

The Girl From Plainville Review and Analysis

The girl from Plainville is added to the narrative vein often traveled by streaming platforms in recent years dedicated to surveys to be re-studied. The perspective presented by the director and screenwriters (as well as that of the authors of the Esquire article “) is clear: the ambiguity and fiction perpetrated by the girl are so clear that it leaves no doubt about her guilt, at least indirectly. In this case, therefore, it is not a question of the reconstruction of a poorly managed process or an unjust condemnation, but rather of the analysis of the relationship between appearance and reality and of how research developments can overturn several times the data presented as certain time.

The Girl from Plainville is however very smooth in its use and well packaged on an aesthetic and immersive level. The eight episodes lasting about 45 minutes each carry on a coherent and clear discourse, without unnecessary artistic digressions and without introspective aspirations that would probably have been out of his reach. Despite the rather heavy and self-contained central theme, the series manages to open to the viewer by providing him with various elements of reflection, such as to form his own opinion regardless of how the facts went in the reality of the trial.

The main strength of The girl from Plainville lies precisely in the treatment of a complex and very unclear story with a human approach, devoid of sensationalism and references to great human dramas. Everything remains almost subdued, in a sort of dignified containment of emotions which in this case benefits the narration and the series: each element remains functional to the overall story and does not distract itself from its task of giving the public a very particular story. Another commendable fact of the series is the treatment of depression, a condition that is ignored or managed rhetorically by the protagonists, with the result that the problem is not solved but rather leads to a tragic ending, regardless of who the real culprit is of the situation.

Excellently played by an increasingly mature Elle Fanning and able to psychologically adhere to her roles, the protagonist of The Girl From Plainville since the pilot is a very difficult character to decipher, who at least in the first episodes does not go out to meet the public trying to bring him to his side, far from it. And this, while laudable from the point of view of the definition of the characters, is the weak point of the show: for a large part the desire not to slip excessively into the melodrama, combined with that of presenting figures in chiaroscuro, does not provide the viewer with many holds. Apart from the discreet dramatic progression of presenting the facts using the two temporal planes, the first four parts are rather “flat”, which should not be misleading, however, since this seems to be precisely the purpose of the series, that is to show how much youth most common American is psychologically very fragile.

In this way, the soporific “warmth” in which all the characters of The Girl From Plainville seem to move becomes rather emblematic. It may not work fully on an emotional grip level, but it has its foundation. The fifth episode of the show deserves a separate discussion, which finally provides a more specific and emotionally strong light on Michele Carter’s inner world, allowing us to see his hidden needs and insecurities. This is a real turning point in the series, which, although not reversing the perspectives – and it would have been a mistake to do so – at least allows us to understand a little more deeply psychology as common as it is problematic.

The Girl From Plainville Review: The Last Words

Difficult to give a definitive judgment on The Girl From Plainville, a second vision would probably be needed, at a safe distance from the first to calmly reflect on what we have seen and experienced. However, we can certainly write that it is a courageous project, in the conception and in the narrative choices with which it was developed.   And for this, if for no other reason, it deserves our consent.