I should say upfront that I don't believe Courtney Love is responsible for Kurt Cobain's death. Part of that undoubtedly has to do with the fact that I'm an unabashed fan of Courtney Love's music (and even her movies), but an even bigger part has to do with the fact that I don't think Tom Grant has much of a case. Prior to watching this documentary I had spent a significant amount of time perusing his website (my interest in Kurt Cobain's life and death was renewed after watching the documentary Hit So Hard a few years ago), so I'm very familiar with the "facts" of Tom Grant's case. Nonetheless, I tried to go into this film with an open mind, but walked away unconvinced.

One of the least convincing aspects of Tom Grant's theory is that Kurt Cobain didn't "seem" suicidal to his friends and loved ones. Tom Grant also talks extensively about Kurt Cobain's suicide attempt and/or overdose in Rome shortly before his death. He keeps going back to fact that Kurt and Courtney publicly denied that the overdose was intentional prior to Kurt's death, and only after his death did Courtney allege that the overdose in Rome was in fact a suicide attempt. Having lost my own mother to suicide, it's also entirely possible that I'm hypersensitive to how people view and talk about suicide, but speaking from my own experience, my mom didn't "seem" suicidal. If she had seemed suicidal, I would have gotten her the help she so desperately needed. I also wanted to believe that her prior suicide attempts were just accidental overdoses, but looking back knowing what I know now, it's impossible to deny that those overdoses were intentional. I don't think Courtney Love is revising history, just setting the record straight.

I also take issue with the often quoted "Kurt had three times the lethal dose of heroin in his system" line of reasoning. I don't know how much heroin Kurt was regularly using preceding his death, but it's an undisputed fact that he was a heroin addict. Abusing any substance results in an increased tolerance for that substance, so what might be a lethal dose for a non-user may not even be enough for a heavy user to feel the effects of the substance. I think it's entirely plausible (and even likely) that "three times the lethal dose" was just a regular dose for Kurt. The film alleges that even heavy users would die as a result of the dose Kurt took, but didn't really give us any details on what kind of "heavy users" they were talking about. I think there's a spectrum of "heavy users"; take, for example, alcohol use: I think anyone would agree that someone who has six drinks a night is a heavy user of alcohol, but what then do we call someone who has twelve drinks a night? The language around substance use and abuse is imperfect, and because the film didn't provide any specific details about this research, I'm still not convinced of this aspect of Tom Grant's theory.

With all of that being said, I actually really enjoyed this documentary. The reenactments were pretty cheesy at times, but Sarah Scott was incredible as Courtney Love, and the film took an interesting approach of integrating real audio recordings within the reenactments. The film was also beautifully shot and enjoyable purely on an aesthetic level.

Verdict: Nothing extraordinary here, but this documentary was surprisingly engaging and entertaining. If nothing else, watch this film for Sarah Scott's take on Courtney Love. 3 out of 5 stars.