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It’s not hard to go online and find people calling Brett Morgen’s Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) a pro-Courtney Love film.

Cobain’s widow has a historically bad rapport with Nirvana fans. Rumors and allegations that she was involved in his death have circulated for over 20 years. She led a vigil after his suicide where thousands gathered to chant “F**k you, Kurt!” which survives as a reprehensible image in the minds of many. People do weird stuff when dealing with trauma, but she’s always done a bad job disguising her crazy.

Since Montage of Heck presents the first authorized biography of Cobain’s life, it’s easy to assume Love and the Cobain estate would be able to manipulate the information within, using it to make Love look better and soften her legacy as the woman who destroyed a musical legend.

The film’s director Brett Morgen adamantly insists that Love had no bearing on the film’s construction as he retained final cut of the project.

Whether a fan of Courtney Love or a hater- Montage of Heck did not come across as propaganda to improve her popular image.

Cobain is a music legend - an icon - and his influence will exist forever. For that, he should always be remembered and revered. But the film shows that as a person, in his final years, he wasn’t a great guy. He broke his connections with almost everyone, wouldn’t talk, didn’t like anyone, and didn’t care about much other than drugs. Heroin, Courtney, and Frances: those were the only things that mattered beyond music. He spent all of his time hidden away, doing drugs, and Courtney was along for the ride. Was she a good person or a positive influence on him? Absolutely not. But she wasn’t any worse than he was. She was just his partner in crime, the person he loved, and an equally big junkie.

That’s really the message of the back half of this film - underneath all the musical genius and influence on popular culture, Cobain was a junkie and falling apart. The home movie footage Morgen includes humanizes and demystifies the image many have in their heads of Cobain. But making Kurt look worse doesn’t make Love look better. It simply evens the field and allows us to see how despite their love, their behavior was toxic. Love did not destroy Cobain; Cobain destroyed Cobain. If anything, one could argue his feelings for her may have kept him going longer than he may have otherwise. Scenes like the one where he’s performing in front of a huge crowd and asks everyone in attendance to chant “We love you Courtney” shows how much he cared about her. His estate couldn’t fabricate something like that.

One of the roughest parts in the film is Frances’ first haircut scene. Kurt is so strung out and distant as she sits on his lap for her trim, he barely looks alive. The film positions clips like this against the two playing and laughing together. Kurt obviously wanted to be a good dad. He wanted to be a good husband. He wanted to give his family what he didn’t have as a child - but then there was heroin.

Despite his musical genius, notwithstanding his obvious love for Courtney and his child, Montage of Heck shows us heroin’s incredibly destructive power. That’s really the focus of much of the Courtney/Kurt footage. Courtney Love didn’t do anything to help his mental state, but it’s hard to say whether or not anyone could have. Although she failed to be a good influence, it’s impossible to know if anyone would have been capable of getting through to him.

It all comes down to this: Did anyone walk away from this film thinking “Wow, that Courtney Love was a great person after all! Who knew?”

I seriously doubt it.