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Is the act or Love You to Death more accurate?

Love You to Death is billed as a thriller based on a true story so it isn't a biopic like last week's Nellie Bly Story, but the film is actually more accurate to the truth than the biopic was.

hiddenremote.com - Is Lifetime's Love You to Death about the Gypsy Blanchard case?
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Academy Award winner, Marcia Gay Harden, stars as the fictional counterpart of Dee Dee Blanchard in Lifetime’s latest film, Love You to Death. Love You to Death is a fictional retelling of the events leading up to the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard. If you frequent the true crime circuit then odds are you’ve heard about this case in great detail since the 2017 HBO documentary, Mommie Dead and Dearest, put it back into the public eye. I knew Lifetime would release a film featuring this tragic story of abuse, murder, and Munchausen by proxy at some point and now, winter 2019, it has finally arrived. Love You to Death is billed as a thriller based on a true story so it isn’t a biopic like last week’s Nellie Bly Story, but the film is actually more accurate to the truth than the biopic was. Go figure. Harden’s character, Camille, is based on Dee Dee and Emily Skeggs portrays her daughter, Esme, the fictional version of Gypsy Blanchard.

Camille’s Story

Love You to Death is told from two different perspectives. The first half of the film focuses on Camille’s care of Esme. She is a doting, nurturing mother who has sacrificed to take care of her child in need. She dresses Esme, feeds her, organizes her pills, watches out for her and protects her from the outside world. From this one point-of-view, the dark truth is harder to see. Camille does her best to make Esme happy. She buys her nice clothes, lets her pick out the items with the most sparkles, spends all day, everyday, nourishing her daughter and giving her attention. When Denise, their friendly neighbor, gives Esme a bright blue wig as a gift, Camille returns it. Influences such as these are inappropriate for such a young girl. But Camille, believing herself to be a kind and doting mother, does eventually relent to allowing Esme to wear the wig and with it, to attend a video game convention where she may live amongst the fantasy for a while. Then Esme suddenly vanishes after a moment of independence and Camille becomes hysterical. She finds Esme with her blouse askew under the wandering hands of a mysterious boy and immediately takes her home, rebuking Denise for convincing her the convention, or wig, was a good idea.

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In a still night not long after the convention, Camille hears glass shattering from her daughter’s bedroom and leaps into action, aiming a pawn shop gun at the mystery intruder – only for the story to then rewind and shift point-of-view before we can learn who, or what, broke the window of Esme’s bedroom.

Esme’s Story

From an early age, Esme has been the victim of her mother’s abuse. As a child she was misdiagnosed with leukemia and from that moment on her mother did everything she could to keep her hospitalized and in need of a caretaker, going as far as to force Esme to mimic symptoms of muscular atrophy and stomach problems that necessitate the need for a feeding tube.

The only saving grace Esme has is a boy named Scott.

As she gets older and her body begins to develop into a womanly figure, Camille continues to shave her head and tape her breasts to rob Esme of her femininity and maintain her youthful appearance. Even her doctors repeatedly inform her mother that the procedures and medications are unnecessary but Camille simply trades them in for new doctors whenever they grow too suspicious. No longer a child, Esme catches on to Camille’s duplicity and begins to rebel. Whenever her mother catches these acts of rebellions she retaliates with emotional manipulation and sometimes even physical abuse, such as strapping Esme to her wheelchair with duct tape. The only saving grace Esme has is a boy named Scott. She met him at an arcade during a rare family excursion. The two begin an online relationship and eventually meet up in person again at the video game convention where they share a kiss and Esme formulates a plan to run away from Camille for good.

The Insidious Truth

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As in the real story, Esme and Scott brutally murder Camille. Murder is, obviously, never the answer but at the same time, this might have been the only way this story could end. Esme was raised in a home of make-believe sickness, essentially tortured and used as a lab rat and ploy for sympathy and attention by the woman who is supposed to care for her the most. Camille fell victim to the outcome of her own horrid machinations. In the Blanchard case, Dee Dee was actually, if it’s possible to believe, worse than Camille in some ways. I’m not sure why Love You to Death didn’t get into the monetary aspect of their relationship but Dee Dee used Gypsy as a pawn to get donations from popular charities such as the Ronald McDonald House and Make-A-Wish. She was a con woman who preyed on Gypsy’s dependence on her from a young age. While Love You to Death is, surprisingly, a mostly accurate version of the Blanchard story, if you’re curious to know more about the details of the case I strongly recommend checking out the HBO documentary film titled Mommie Dead and Dearest, directed by Erin Lee Carr. Hulu will also present its own fictionalized version of the case in its upcoming drama series, The Act, which will star Patricia Arquette in the role of Dee Dee and Joey King as Gypsy.



Love You to Death will air a special encore presentation on Sunday, January 27, at 8:00 pm EST complete with extra scenes. Check your local cable listings for future showings.

hiddenremote.com - Is Lifetime's Love You to Death about the Gypsy Blanchard case?
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