THE GIRL FROM PLAINVILLE’S PRODUCERS ON ADAPTING 2014’S TEXTING-SUICIDE CASE FOR TV
First Published on VanityFair.com
“THIS WAS NEVER ABOUT RELITIGATING THE CASE,” SAYS LIZ HANNAH ABOUT THE HULU SERIES, WHICH STARS ELLE FANNING AS MICHELLE CARTER. “BUT TRYING TO LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE AND THE STORY THAT HAPPENED TO THEM.”
When Michelle Carter stood trial for involuntary manslaughter, after she encouraged boyfriend Conrad Roy III to take his life via text messages, media coverage cast the teenage Carter as the clear villain in the tragedy.
But Jesse Barron’s 2017 Esquire feature and Erin Lee Carter’s 2019 HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die described details about the case that complicated news outlets’ two-dimensional depictions. Both addressed Carter’s and Roy’s complex histories with mental illness and medication, as well as the possibility that neither Massachusetts teen had a firm grasp on reality in the days ahead of the 2014 suicide. (Carter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in 2017, and released from prison in 2020 after serving 11 months of a sentence shortened for good behavior.)
The new Hulu drama series The Girl From Plainville, created by Liz Hannah and Patrick Macmanus, attempts to explore these gray areas by flipping between Carter and Roy’s fictional perspectives, with Carter played by Elle Fanning and Roy portrayed by Colton Ryan.
“We were really trying to approach this story with empathy, without judgment, and look at the humanity of each of these characters—not just Michelle, but of Conrad, and of [Conrad’s mother] Lynn, and of everybody involved,” Hannah tells Vanity Fair in a Zoom interview. “This was never about relitigating the case, but trying to look at these people and the story that happened to them.”
“Reading Jesse’s article, watching the documentary, and then really reading the text messages [between Carter and Roy] is what opened my eyes to how layered this relationship was,” adds the filmmaker. “I didn’t know know anything about Michelle’s struggles with her eating disorder. I didn’t know anything about her relationship with her friends outside of the court testimony. Or just how devastating and lonely it felt to read her conversations with her friends.”
“There is a more complicated version of events that transpired between these two,” adds Macmanus. “That was extraordinarily intriguing.”