This is the story of a broken woman who wants nothing more than to be loved. Unable to find somebody to love her, she decides to have a child because a child has to love you. However, after her third miscarriage, the doctor tells her she will never be able to bring a child to term. Shattered and heartbroken she devises a plan to get herself a baby... So, one night, she steals away with Carlina White and interjects her into her life. Since everyone in her family knew she was pregnant, it makes it easier to install Catalina as Nedra "Neddy"'. For the next twenty-odd years she's her cuckoo mother. All the while, her real mother never stops searching for her or believing she's alive.
This is based on a true story and was a chance to get all the parents views across, as well as that of the abducted Carlina. However, I find that the movie falls flat in doing that. What you have is a series of events, showing Ann (Ellis) bringing up Neddie at different periods of her life... and where Joy's (Shepherd) search for her daughter was at that time. This is all well and good for setting the scene... but they are just memories of a life lived, and a life missed. What would have been nice would be to get inside the characters of all involved, which the latter part of the movie feels like. However, both the story and the film fail to give any depth to the parents and child. In fact, when this gets to court the characters appear more two dimensional than they had previously. This could be because it just turned into a shouting match between Ann and Joy. If this is how it actually happened then I'm sad for both the women.
As for the acting, this is above average... for most of the movie... When Neddie finds out she's Catalina then she starts to change, though not for the better, with the stress of expectations being forced on her. Unfortunately, Palmer, who has done a good job of portraying her character isn't able to convey this mix of emotions... or it's the director's vision of the story didn't gell right. But from here on in, she starts to appear awkward in most of her scenes and her character does a complete one-eighty. This U-turn puts it at odds with what the audience has previously seen. This transition isn't carried out so well and it really does jar the pace and feel of the story and film.
In short, the first two-thirds of this flick is good. It's the last third that gets weak. Which is a shame? I was expecting not to like this movie as I usually dislike this style of storytelling. However, I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. So, this last section really did disrupt my enjoyment of the movie.
If you like the "True-Life" abducted or kidnapped stories you may like this.
