Conclusions hâtives

What is it with Mare Winningham and photo labs? After her 1991 Fatal Exposure TVM, Winningham is in photographic trouble again! Here Winningham is Jennifer Bradley, a Cincinatti internet web site designer and mother of 3 - 7 year old Lauren (Amy Zell), 4 year old Sophie (Alex Gaistman) and toddler Luke (Alexander Cameron Drogemuller) - whose Chicago friend Carrie Dixon (Felicity Huffman) takes photographs of as they innocently play semi-naked. However the photo lab that develops Carrie's pictures sends the contact sheet and negatives to the police, fearing child abuse and child pornography.

Winningham carries extra weight as the mother of 3 children and wears blonde hair. Her anger at the situation is expressed in hushed tones when she is initially questioned, and controlled emotional anger when she says `Shame on you' to the prosecutors for the way they have cropped the photos to distort their intent. Winningham's face changes from crushed sadness to a smile in close-up when she sees Lauren looking at her, lowers her head in shameful disappointment when her lawyer Steve Godwin (Ron Sarosiak) tells her of the negative reaction of a focus group to the photos, and captures our empathy when she cries `My babies' at the idea of life without her children.

The teleplay by Ara Watson and Sam Blackwell, based on a story inspired by real events by Randy Sue Coburn, presents a tale of injustice since we are witness to the behavior that created the photographs, including how some of them were actually taken by Lauren. Jennifer is also such an earth mother that the idea of her being duplicitous is inexplicable -she even stops Godwin from cross-examining a prosecution witness Sara Hawkins (Megan Fahlenbock) who is also in the photos because Sara is pregnant. However Carrie's character retains some doubt, partly because of the poor performance of Huffman. Having Carrie a cancer survivor is presumably meant to make her a fighter but as it is, the cancer only attaches a level of illness to her. Jennifer also recognises that the question of innocence is irrelevant once the tag pornography has been projected onto images - and the drive to prosecute Jennifer and Carrie is motored by the far creepier Cincinatti Detective John Collins (Chelcie Ross).

Director Alan Metzger uses a hand-held camera for the photography scene to allow for the freestyle interraction of the children, and also explain the multiple and un-posed nature of the session.

Enjoyable,thought provoking film and well acted through out. The film reflects how easy it is for some one to be judged guilty once the buzzwords "pornography" "child abuse" and "paedophile" are used.

In this film a serious of playful innocent photos,some taken by the children themselves are construed as pornography by the local film processing lab who pass them onto the police and Pandora's box is opened when a cop on a crusade wants to make an example of the loving widowed mother of the 3 supposed "victims".

The movie starts with spontaneous fun in the family. It's a terrific sequence. I don't know when I've seen anything with two or three kids in it staged so believably. Maybe someone in charge thought that the scene was the best part of the movie, because though it goes on and on, parts of the rest of the story remain undeveloped.

Mare Winningham for the umpteenth time plays a woman who is dealt a blow by circumstance. She does it magnificently as always, but this time she has very little to work with except the basic premise of being a successful mother (as if the script didn't provide enough indications, there's a certificate on the wall dedicated to "MOM") who, together with a friend, is falsely accused of abuse.

Knowing that abusers are not always the people you'd suspect, does her family feel certain they can trust her? Can she really trust her friend? The questions are raised and then quickly cast off by the wayside. When Mare says to a friend something like, "Thank you for helping me learn how to let myself be helped," she's telling us something that the script doesn't give us much of a chance to see. When her friend raises the idea of going to Italy, it's out of the blue and not fully explained. Italy, with its fashion and design industries, is not exactly noted for a lack of sexual abuse. But here, perhaps, somebody took a detail from the true story without bothering to polish it up.

The script basically gives us one woman against the world, rather than pursuing any opportunities to play with the mix of trust and suspicion between her and the various other characters she encounters.

Do you like horrors? You have Friday the 13th or Halloween in your mind? Forget all those ketchup-based movies! This one is a real horror. Horror is something that should make you scared, really scared so your hands will tremble and your pulse rate jump to 150. How many chances are that you meet an alien or Freddy Kruger in your basement (or you'll more likely meet a burglar)? Do you think it's King-Carpenter's driverless Christina or Spielberg's ghost truck that is your threat in the street (or is it a drunk kid from the block)? Is a haunted castle or Muldair's alien spacecraft a place that you'll be imprisoned in (or could it be a mental institution due to wrong diagnosis?).

There are real horrors that can happen in your, mine, anybody's life, but they don't seem to be attractive to movie makers. It was a real life story that inspired the authors, otherwise we probably still wouldn't see such a movie. And the horror is one of the most threatening: false accusation for child abuse. You can compare it only to anticommunists accusations beyond Iron curtain in 50's, suspected witches centuries ago, and maybe (but just maybe) fetvas in Islamic countries.

There are three steps to horror (so you'll never see heaven). First, suspicion. Few days you can think it's a nightmare, your friends and family think it's a mistake; but you won't wake up and all the others will become cautious. Second step, punishment. You are abandoned by everyone during trial, some of them will join those who prosecute you either because they believe you are guilty or because they have some interest; while in jail you are on the bottom of survival ladder with no one to protect you. Third step, nothingness. If ever you leave the jail alive, no one will want to meet you or confirm they ever knew you, afraid because people might think they are the same like you if seen with you; you will be a ghost, and sometimes even happy if someone doesn't decide you are a free prey for hunting and shooting.

I don't believe Jen and Carrie ever found a true happy-end in reality. Once hearing such an accusation people always tend to avoid these persons, either in doubt about their guilt (just couldn't be proved) or for being afraid they're under surveillance. Once suspects for being witches / anticommunists / molesters people terminate their normal social life for good.

"I've never thought something like this could happen in America" said Carrie. In fact, I don't know it could happen anywhere else. Such a banal cause, such intense hatred by individuals and mass hysteria following them... I can't imagine it in any other place.

The movie makes people think, but that's the best one can say about it. As often in TV movies made from a real story we have one person in the middle, and we never find what was Collins' motif - personal experience, religious fanaticism, building career, following society streams? We don't know much about Carrie either - what kind of photographs was she famous for? Jennifer is pale as a character. If it was made on purpose, if it was supposed to show how Jennifer was lost in these absurd circumstances, Mare Winningham didn't show it. In fact it was her (and being a big fan of her I watched this movie only after seeing her name in cast) worst role I've ever seen. It would be better if she repeated her acting in "Intruders".