The Giving Tree

This is an unbelievably bad film. It was so utterly forgettable that I spent 5 minutes on here trying to remember the title. It is one of Lifetime's Rape-of-the-Week flicks, apparently done by a director with a John Hughes complex, as it stars Molly Ringwald and the principal from "Breakfast Club" as a blind doctor(?) I am so filled with contempt right now, I don't even know where to start.

Christina Applegate's character (Emily) is forced to witness her two friends be raped after things at a house party get flirtatious to the point of hostile. Thing is though, there are two women in the back of the house that have just been there(?), looking like they're ready to go. Not to mention, in the time it takes Emily to find the bathroom, the two friends have been roughed up, tied up and gagged in a back bedroom. That house certainly seems to have a lot of adjoining doors. Implausibly, one guy would rather rape these two skanks while the other forces Emily to watch. Instead of Applegate! Are you serious? Christina dodging the old nudity bugaboo again.

Anyway, eventually the truth comes out to the assembled friends after the preggers one spills the beans. She then begins to spontaneously deliver and the entire house hoists her onto the dining room table. I guess nobody's ever heard of 911, much less a car. The slow one comes back and notifies everybody that there's a doctor living next door. The guy is blind but manages to deliver the baby. He actually turns out to be Emily's father. In turn, the father of the newborn "takes full responsibility for Emily's death... I am sure there are questions you want to ask me." To which the doctor basically responds "No, I'm good." Moon Zappa looks more like the smarmy guy that knocked-up Jennifer Jason-Leigh's character in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" every year. Molly Ringwald is "pushing maximum density," as Judd Nelson told her she would in "Breakfast Club," and the guys in the movie look like Maroon 5 or Third Eye Blind rejects.

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack sounds like it was done back in the early '70s. Excuse me now, I am going to rinse my eyes out with chlorine.

This movie was torture... it was one of those things I watched at 2am trying to fall asleep (on Cinemax I think) and my husband snored peacefully. How terribly depressing and it took way too long for the story to unfold. Pretty bad acting all around too... sad to say SOMEBODY paid to make this movie.

That this picture was awful. I can't believe that I wasted my time watching this drivel. Gee, sub-par acting, retread actors, super-corny plot. Man, the person who wrote this screenplay must of had a tortured childhood. How do you get paid for crappy acting and lousy screenplay, cause I need the work!

BTW - Why does Lifetime show the worst films?

This exercise in Gen X angst is unbelieveable, overwrought, poorly written, badly acted, and has one of the most annoying soundtracks you'll ever hear. Every time there's a lull in the inane patter (which is frequently) another overamplified and undernourished alternative folk song saturates the soundtrack. One of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through.

Christina Applegate Stars in a Drama about a group of friends that meet up after 10 years of high school. And deadly secerts come back to haunt them. I give this movie 5 stars ***** And the movie has 3 different titles to it. The first one is (The Giving Tree) the second one is (Shaded Places) the third one is the video title and it is called (The Brutal Truth).