La voleuse d'enfants

It's been a decade since I saw this, but my ex-wife and I could not help but comment on how unbelievable the details were and how far both Veronica Hamel and Nancy McKeon had fallen. (Nancy seems to have recovered, at least.) In hindsight, it's a wonder this didn't damage Michael Madsen's career.

Who would believe that a divorced waitress with a child, pregnant by her married and not wealthy lover, would live in a single-family house and drive a late-model Volvo station wagon? That just shows how out of touch Hollywood people were with how ordinary people lived.

This is a TV movie and in its way, it is a cut above average. First of all, it has Veronica Hamel and Michael Madsen, two very good actors. Secondly, it's a true story, making it all the more outrageous.

Veronica Hamel plays a total nut job who basically has no use for kids. She does the usual baby-stealing bit we've seen so many times to give her husband a child which she conveniently delivers by herself at home. When Madsen comes home after the "delivery," Veronica looks gorgeous as the baby lies in her arms, like something out of a magazine. Madsen's character is just a tad naive, as we learn as the story continues. For instance, he tells his friends that the baby is something like three months, when it's obvious the baby is more like nine months.

Hamel's character isn't particularly far thinking. She manages to stay married to her husband while faking pregnancy. After nine months she makes a call from a phone booth and tries to adopt a baby for like the next day. It's a riot! Veronica, you should have started making plans a LOT earlier. So she has no choice but to steal one - and it's not exactly a newborn.

I really recommend it - it's a hoot and holds your interest.

This true story was shown on the tv series, Lt. Joe Kendra, Homicide Hunter. He was the detective played by by David Duchovny! It was neat to see it from a detective's point of view!

While the theme is something we have seen before on LMN, the story is based on truth , and Nancy McKeon is believable as the victimized mother whose child is stolen by a woman posing as a nanny.

Michael Madsen portrays a military man, tired of his marriage to Veronica Hamel, and tells her he wants out. As an older woman, she panics, her perfect life disrupted, so she decides that a baby will save the marriage. She has problems becoming pregnant, so concocts a scheme: she pretends to be pregnant, wears maternity clothes and pillows to make her husband believe she is indeed pregnant. As he is a man rigid to his obligations, this one fact keeps him in the marriage. He crassly tells her, "My C.O. will not approve if I divorce you know, a pregnant woman".

Nine months pass and, as her husband is blissfully uninterested, Hamel gets away with the initial scheme. Then her husband asks...are't you about due, wherein she again panics, and tries to adopt. When that doesn't work, she advertises for employment as a nanny. As she is well- spoken and educated, she is hired by Nancy McKeon's mother, who believes her to be trustworthy. In the instant she allows Hamel to hold the child, the child is abducted.

McKeon portrays a low-income single mother, and there is a cameo with David Duchovny as the sometime father of the child. The media initially blamed the parents, as in most cases they are immediate suspects. McKeon rises to the occasion, and uses the media to publicize her child's abduction.

The fact that this is a true story serves as a cautionary tale to any new parents, and Veronica Hamel excels here as a desperate and borderline personality who will do anything to save her faltering marriage. 8/10.

I saw this movie when I was 13 years old which is when it first came on television here in the States. Even as a child I was horrified that a baby could be kidnapped from a hospital. What makes it horrifying is the fact that most newborns look alike and have no distinguishing characteristics yet. The Two main female characters, the mother and the kidnapper both had dark hair and light eyes. This baby could have passed for either of the women's baby. I agree, the husband was an idiot. Although I was only 13 I did wonder why he never saw her naked in the shower or put his hand on her belly and noticed that something wasn't right. I assumed it didn't fit in the movie. whatever the reason it lost a point for that.

This movie was realistic in the reactions of the characters and what they were going through. The writer even thought to add a line about the mother starting to lose her breast milk. Anyone who has seen The Hand that Rocks The Cradle with Rebecca DeMornay or who is a breastfeeding mom knows why that is such a big deal. It was also very interesting to see Nancy McKeon as a mother in a dramatic role when all I had known of her at the time was Jo from the Facts of Life, now a cult classic. There are a few actors in this movie that later went on to star in blockbuster films like Micheal Madsen and David Duchovny.

Now that I am a mother this movie is even more horrific. With doctors leaving utensils inside their patients after operations it's difficult to remain optimistic about the safety of a newborn in a hospital.

Just a side note, I personally know of several women who learned how to fake a pregnancy based on this movie. That ups the horrifying factor for me quite a bit.