The great Lisa Cholodenko is teaming with The Great actress Elle Fanning on Hulu's true-crime series The Girl From Plainville, which centers around the infamous texting-suicide case of Massachusetts teen Michelle Carter.
The limited series will examine the events that led Carter to stand trial for homicide after her boyfriend Conrad Roy killed himself. Prosecutors argued that her calls and texts encouraging Roy to take his own life fueled his heartbreaking decision and that he would not have gone through with it had she not urged him to do so.
The case shocked both the nation and the close-knit community of Plainville, and Hulu gave the show a straight-to-series order last August. Cholodenko will direct the first two episodes of The Girl From Plainville, a plum assignment that comes on the heels of Cholodenko directing the first three episodes of Netflix's acclaimed drama Unbelievable starring Merritt Wever and Toni Collette.
Produced by Universal Cable Productions, The Girl From Plainville is based on Jesse Barron's 2017 Esquire article of the same name, and it hails from The Post writer Liz Hannah and Dr. Death executive producer Patrick Macmanus, who will serve as co-showrunners.
Hannah and Macmanus will also executive produce alongside Fanning and Echo Lake’s Brittany Kahan Ward. Barron will serve as a consulting producer alongside Erin Lee Carr, who directed an HBO documentary about the case titled I Love You, Now Die. Kelly Funke will oversee for Macmanus’ Littleton Road Productions, and the series is slated to start production later this year.
Cholodenko's credits include The Kids Are All Right, which was nominated for Best Picture, as well as the celebrated HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge, for which she won an Emmy. Cholodenko also directed the well-reviewed indie Laurel Canyon starring Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale and Alessandro Nivola. She's a great choice for The Girl From Plainville, which will be Fanning's second Hulu series along with The Great, which has been renewed for a second season.