The Girl from Plainville

The performances and subject matter are pretty hard to criticise - Elle Fanning in particular is superb and is an eerily good likeness to the real Michelle Carter - the story is sadly compelling too. It occasionally dragged (despite the very sad and tragic nature of the real life story it depicted) so ideally it would have benefited from being a couple of episodes shorter. One main criticism I have though is that the text messaging was so frequent (plus an integral part of the story) that it should have been subtitled like the dialogue was. I had to keep stopping it to look closely at what was being said in the texts which was annoying!

The flashbacks and the cuts to them "live" and together when they are just texting is very confusing. They jump around so much with little indication of where we are in the sequence of events. Acting is okay, I think Elle Fanning portrays Michelle pretty well. Could have been done in less episodes, I'm gonna power through to finish, but it drags a bit.

The show seems to jump from the past to present with no real indication. It can be jarring and annoying. This had potential to being an incredibly addictive series but it's just too dragged out and occasionally confusing. Elle Fanning is sensational though. Let's be honest - she is the reason I'll finish this series.

I have always been a bigger fan of documentaries rather than reenactments. For those of you who agree with that statement, just watch the HBO documentary "I Love You, Now Die." I started this and then realized how pointless it is to watch people re-enacting a story and there being "events that are dramatized" (as per the statement in the opening first episode) when you can just watch the real deal. Similar to The Dropout, where you can just watch The Inventor documentary about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.

The whole point of this review is: if you're more into that way of filmmaking, I want to make sure you know that exists as well. This isn't the only way to get this story.

Elle Fanning does an amazing job on this - she portrays the desperate teen grasping for every bit of attention she can get superbly. As for the series, only three episodes in, so I can't comment on the plot in its entirety - but there are already such negative reviews on here from people that have probably watched ten minutes of it, so I wanted to balance it out and let people know that Elle's acting alone is a good enough reason to give this show a chance and the real life events it's based on make a great story.