‘Girl From Plainville’ is admirably plain

Content warning: This review discusses death by suicide and grief. This review contains spoilers for episode 1.

When a loved one dies, their family does not grieve alongside heart-wrenching music, nor do they see the world through dramatic wide-angle camera shots. In fact, it isn’t loud at all, and the world seems rather plain.

Although manifesting differently for everyone, grief is often silent and unrelenting. 

Hulu’s newest drama, “The Girl From Plainville,” released last Tuesday, beautifully displays the relentless isolation of grief. The show follows the Roy family as they grieve their son Conrad (Colton Ryan), who died by suicide and the subsequent investigation into Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning), the woman who encouraged him to take his own life. 

Based on a true story, the series details events in 2014, where Carter encouraged her alleged boyfriend, Conrad Roy Jr., to take his life. In a monumental case, Carter was later convicted of manslaughter. 

The premiere begins in the immediate aftermath of Roy Jr.’s death, starting with the Roy family’s desperate search for their son, culminating in the police finding his truck and body. Viewers are quickly introduced to Carter, a girl overcome by her grief for Conrad, yet no one in her family knows who Conrad is, and Conrad’s family has never heard her name. Carter is soon revealed to be reveling in Conrad’s death and works diligently to shift the focus off of him and his family and onto herself — his grieving girlfriend. 

Her narrative is manipulative and incredibly harmful. She inserts herself into the Roy family and forces them into the limelight, not allowing them to grieve in peace. 

At the end of the first episode, there is a shockingly haunting scene of Carter mimicking Lea Michele’s performance of “Make You Feel My Love” in the season 5 episode of “Glee,” “The Quarterback.” Carter wanted to be Lea Michele, the beautiful girlfriend thrust into the spotlight after her boyfriend’s death. However, Michele’s tears were real. Carter’s were not. 

This scene was particularly terrifying as Fanning perfectly displayed the merging of Carter’s fantasy (to be like Michele’s) and reality. Carter convinces herself that she is grieving and deserves the center of attention following Conrad’s death.

Frankly, it is impossible not to absolutely hate her and resist the desire to scream when she is on screen. However, the strong emotional reaction is because of Fanning’s impeccable acting. Fanning finds the reality Carter convinced herself she was in and dives deep into that headspace. 

Although Fanning is brilliant, the true standout is Chloë Sevigny, who depicts Lynn Roy, Conrad’s mom. Her performance is understated, quiet yet devastating. She does not rely on loud proclamations about her pain but instead on blank stares seemingly devoid of emotion except from her eyes, which elicit a deep and meaningful sadness. 

Sevigny’s depiction is accented by a remarkable sound department that knows when to stay quiet.

There is no dramatic background music attempting to get the audience to empathize with Lynn and the rest of the grieving Roy family. Instead, there is only haunting silence. 

The silence is incredibly deafening and adds to the seriousness of the situation. Silence makes their grief seem real because, after all, in real life, there is no soundtrack accompanying grief; there is just the unrelenting quiet and dark cloud of knowing more time passes since the loss of your loved one, stuck in the moment it happened. 

“The Girl from Plainville” is incredibly careful to display realistic grief in a story about death. Crime-based miniseries too often glorify the perpetrator while reducing the victim to a flat narrative. However, Carter is creepy and, to everyone’s relief, portrayed as the obviously guilty perpetrator in Conrad’s death. 

Lynn Roy even spoke about the family’s fear of this reduction prior to the release of the show, stating how she worried “there may be an attempt to defend some of her needless and evil actions.” The family spoke about their disappointment for not receiving a copy of the script and being forced to relive the loss of their son at the same time as the public, instead of beforehand and privately. 

The Roy family raises a good point. Why force their family to relive the loss of their son in the name of good television? There was no need to tell the Roy family story, especially when any detail about Conrad and Carter’s relationship came from Carter. Although Carter does not come off well in the miniseries, it validates and relies on her account of her and Conrad’s relationship and ends up casting her in the role she desired to play all along: Conrad’s girlfriend. 

Carter is the real winner of Hulu producing Conrad’s story, as she is the only person who desired the spotlight. Although a great effort, “The Girl from Plainville” forces the Roy family to relive a horrific time in their lives and make sure they never forget the name Michelle Carter.