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Choked Up
Curious
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Murder. Illicit romance. Fraud. Mental illness. Child abuse. The story of the mother and daughter pair Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard has everything you could ask for from a Lifetime Original movie. However, in director Erin Lee Carr’s hands, Mommy Dead and Dearest explores just how deeply disturbing and devastating this real-life tale of manipulation is.
It’s next to impossible to talk about Mommy Dead and Dearest without revealing its many twists. In June of 2015, Dee Dee Blanchard was found murdered in her bed with numerous graphic posts lining her Facebook page. After police arrived on the scene Dee Dee’s beloved and supposedly cancer-stricken daughter was nowhere to be found. However, Dee Dee’s daughter and killer were soon located, and both were revealed to be the same person — Gypsy Rose Blanchard. So begins this documentary’s careful unwinding of truth from fiction and right from wrong, told by everyone from deceived friends and family members to psychological professionals and Gypsy Rose herself. Even mentioning those beginning plot points steals from the impact of this powerful true crime film.
Because of the disturbing nature of Dee Dee Blanchard’s murder and Gypsy Rose’s secret life, this case made headlines when it first came to light in 2015. Much of the crime’s coverage took on a tone of open-mouthed shock, which is not surprising given its twisting narrative. Mommy Dead and Dearest certainly does its part to parse through the extreme circumstances that led to Dee Dee Blanchard’s murder, but it also adds a note of humanity to this gut-wrenching true crime story. Direct interviews with Gypsy Rose are often intercut with interviews with mental health professionals and talking head segments with Michelle Dean, the journalist who covered the case in depth for BuzzFeed. Dean’s onscreen moments, though initially distracting, are especially interesting, showing the audience a journalist questioning the authenticity of her subject in as close to real time as possible.
That being said, the documentary never makes the case that Gypsy Rose or her secret boyfriend, who actually committed the murder, are innocent. The footage of Gypsy Rose and Nick Godejohn being interrogated is especially difficult to watch. These moments show two people disconnected from reality and completely unable to understand the horrors they have committed, as one responds through tears and the other with calloused confidence. In these moments, it’s difficult to determine who the real victim of this story is.
It would be easy for the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard to be condensed into a cheap half-hour of daytime true crime television, and I’m sure this story will receive that treatment at some point. It’s too shocking of a story and we’re too obsessed with true crime for it to go any other way. But under Carr’s direction, Mommy Dead and Dearest examines this story from a sympathetic and open-minded place, and, as a result, the documentary is able to craft a explanation for why this horrible murder happened. Even more than that, the film explores the horrors of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome and the deep-seated ways Gypsy Rose’s life of abuse had and will continue to affect her. The crime at the center of Mommy Dead and Dearest may be scandalous and intriguing, but the documentary’s take on its subject always remains human.
Mommy Dead and Dearest premieres on HBO Monday, May 15 at 10 p.m. ET.
