53 Days: The Abduction of Mary Stauffer

This review isn't to discredit the ordeal Mary and her daughter went through, but to critique the acting and direction. Horrible!! I've seen better acting from Lifetime and I'm very disappointed in their low budget production of this true story. They sugar coated what happens to Mary and her daughter and should have focused more on making this feel less like a mediocre cry for their fan base. The camera is often unsteady and the actors talk like they are reading from que cards

You have to wonder about the people who are around you when you consider true crime. Mary Stauffer was not a woman who one would consider to be living a high risk lifestyle yet she and her daughter were abducted.

The film is fairly tame considering what they actually went through. Lifetime has a way of filming some pretty horrific crimes committed against woman in ways that are respectful towards victims and that is appreciated by a lot of women.

I would suggest this. It was well acted and a decent watch for a night on the couch.

I'll keep this short and sweet. The story here is very close to the actual happenings of the Mary Stauffer kidnapping, but because this was a film designed for a TV audience, including children, it spares many of the horrific accounts that actually took place.

Hannigan delivers above all in this movie to portray Mary, a role that is difficult to capture and required a lot of pressure to take on.

It's also an excellent testament to the power of hope and prayer. The morals that the world learned from the actual crime are easily pushed in a proper manner.

Lifetime took a terrifying, real story and turned it into a boring, glaringly fake movie.

The acting is absolutely attrocious. The little girl lacks any acting skills, I wonder who cast her in this movie, and why. As for the professional actors, especially the only name recognizable, Alyson Hannigan, they all should be ashamed of portraying of real life persons with such incompetence.

The soundtrack is cloying. The dialogue is inane. Eg., Question: "How long have you been watching me?". Answer: "Nobody will find you".

The scenario is illogical: the only time the abducted mother screams for help is several weeks after being locked in a closet when the kidnapper plays LOUD music!

Everything in this movie makes you aware how FAKE and idiotic it is.

Everyone involved in making this movie did an abysmal job.

In 1980, school teacher Mary Stauffer (Alyson Hannigan) and her eight-year old daughter Beth are kidnapped by her former student Ming Sen Shiue. They are held captive for 53 days. It's a straight forward Lifetime woman-in-trouble movie. Alyson is good. Most of the actors are fine. Everything is fine and nothing's great.