The Girl from Plainville – Hulu Series Review

THE GIRL FROM PLAINVILLE on Hulu is a new true-crime series in eight episodes. It premieres with the first three, which should be plenty to get you hooked. No matter how familiar you are with this case, it’s a fascinating – and very scary – story. Read our full The Girl from Plainville series review here!

THE GIRL FROM PLAINVILLE is a new Hulu series in the true-crime subgenre. Obviously, there are elements of this story that are fictionalized. However, as anyone familiar with the case will know, there is also a lot of it taken directly from real events.

You don’t have to know the case involving Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy to watch this. Sure, you’ll have an easier time keeping up, but the story is told rather straightforward with flashbacks to tell the full story.

Continue reading our The Girl from Plainville series review below. You can find the first three (out of eight) episodes of the series on Hulu now.

Elle Fanning is Michelle Carter

There are plenty of times that you’ll feel angry and disgusted while watching Michelle Carter in The Girl from Plainville. When looking at the facts and seeing pictures from the trial, you’ll quickly be reminded that she isn’t “just” a character in a fictional story. Sure, there are plenty of fictionalized elements to the story, but also plenty taken from actual facts.

Watching Elle Fanning as Michelle Carter, I was fascinated by how well she managed to catch the facial expressions of the real person. I know that this is part of her job, but sometimes actors go a little overboard. When that happens, it becomes a strange parody rather than an actual portrayal.

Elle Fanning (Mary Shelley) manages to hold back just enough to avoid this. All while having to play out some very crazy scenes.

The very strong supporting cast

While The Girl from Plainville is primarily about Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning), the story only works when you get to see the bigger picture. In order to do this, there are many supporting roles that are portrayed by some extremely strong actors.

We have Chloë Sevigny (Lizzie) as Lynn Roy. She’s the mother of Conrad Roy, who discovers she didn’t really know her son as well as she thought. Also, she never even heard of Michelle Carter before her son committed suicide. On the other side, we have Cara Buono (Stranger Things) as Gail Carter, the mother of Michelle Carter. She hadn’t heard of Conrad either.

The fact that the families of these two teens had never heard of the other person, is just one part of why this story fascinated people from the beginning. The father of Michelle Carter is portrayed by Kai Lennox (Green Room) and the father of Conrad Roy is portrayed by Norbert Leo Butz (Bloodline).

Watch The Girl from Plainville on Hulu now!

The Girl from Plainville was co-created by Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus. Previously, Liz Hannah worked on Mindhunter and Patrick Macmanus worked on both Homecoming and Dr. Death. Of course, both Mindhunter and Dr. Death are also based on real events, so both are familiar with this particular subgenre.

As directors, there are many well-established names onboard. Including Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right, Unbelievable), Zetna Fuentes (Cursed, Ray Donovan), Pippa Bianco (Euphoria), and creator Liz Hannah.

You don’t need to be familiar with this case to watch the series on Hulu. However, it does add quite a bit more insight, obviously. There is a lot of important messages that are dealt with in very sober and insightful ways. Overall, this series is exactly as fascinating – and scary – as the real story.

The Girl from Plainville premieres with three episodes on Hulu on March 29, 2022. The remaining five episodes air weekly with the finale on May 3, 2022.

Details

Creators: Liz Hannah, Patrick Macmanus
Stars: Elle Fanning, Chloë Sevigny, Colton Ryan, Norbert Leo Butz, Jeff Wahlberg, Ella Kennedy Davis