A good documentary is hard to pull off, especially one focused on a case like this that is both recent and still very contentious. How do you remain neutral in a case like this? How do you avoid either sliding to one side, where you depict Michelle Carter as a monster in a woman's form, a manipulator who wanted nothing more than fame, or the other, where she remains purely innocent of her own actions behind a wall of mental instability and undiagnosed issues? How do you avoid dramatizing it? (like the absolutely terrible Hulu show they just made?)
I Love You, Now Die, I feel, splits that line perfectly. Part 1 goes over the Prosecutions main arguments. Michelle Carter did encourage him constantly in Conrad's last few days and hours to do the task. She was aware of his mental instabilities and desperate for attention. She was someone who wanted people to talk to her and find her interesting. She wanted the attention of her sympathy, and her lies to her friends about him being missing is genuinely chilling. She knew he was dead by that point.
Where it gets interesting is with Part 2, focusing on the defense. Conrad Roy III was not someone with a pristine record. He had his own battles with mental problems, depression and anxiety, attempts at suicide, and he often piled all of his biggest concerns onto her, since he didn't trust his own very abusive family. Michelle Carter had genuine mental disorders, wanting to paint their romance as something out of a play, out of a movie, and in her deluded state she might have genuinely believed she was helping him get rid of the pain. I don't doubt that she did care for him, but that she was incapable of healthily showcasing that love.
I only knock a star because it feels like they kinda scramble at the end to touch on other things, and the good pace of the rest of the documentary kinda slips up, but overall (and no matter how you feel on the verdict), I think this is a great documentary, especially balanced and very informative.
