Movie review: Hit So Hard starring Courtney Love, Patty Schemel

P David Ebersole, 103mins, NC

Patty Schemel, one-time drummer of Courtney Love’s band Hole, gets to tell her survivor’s story in this indulgent and mildly diverting documentary.

Playing drums from the age of 11, Schemel had her first drink at 12; a lesbian from a deeply conservative background, by her twenties she was up to here in heroin, with the deaths of other addicts close to her – Kurt Cobain (suicide) and her bandmate Kristen Pfaff (overdose) – a futile warning.

Director P. David Ebersole intercuts band interviews with unseen video footage the drummer shot of the cutesy domestic routine chez Cobain and Love, though it will be of limited interest to anyone but die-hard Hole fans and grunge nostalgists.