Hidden Away

For dramatic visual purposes, abused wife Emmanuelle Vaugier (as Stephanie) takes her seven-year-old daughter and heads for the Canadian border in a small boat during the pouring rain while firefighter husband Ivan Sergei (as Andrew Bennett) is out buying some flowers. Probably, he wants to kiss and make-up after viciously throwing Ms. Vaugier around the house. Ten years later, Vaugier is a successful realtor in Palm Springs, CA. She stole another woman's identity and started over (as Alexandra Cole) by faking her death and cashing in on a $250,000 insurance policy. Vaugier is dating handsome art museum assistant director Sean Patrick Flanery (as Brett Collins) while making sure pretty teenage Allie Gonino (as Rachel) isn't out too late with boyfriends...

After finding his wife's box hidden in the attic while exterminating raccoons, Mr. Sergei finds evidence suggesting she and step-daughter are alive. Then, we're off to the races. "Hidden Away" is hard to take. For example, they ran into problems with the age of "Sage" if she were a teenager played by an actress past her teens. We're told she "blocked" unpleasantness, but it doesn't ring true. The best course would have been to make her younger, since her parents are a stretch at being ten years older. Sergei almost steals the show by offering a more believable performance than usual for the genre. Thomas Calabro and Elisabeth Rohm lend good support. Director Peter Sullivan does well in buildings, stretching players and shots along spacious horizontals, with depth.

***** Hidden Away (7/27/13) Peter Sullivan ~ Emmanuelle Vaugier, Ivan Sergei, Sean Patrick Flanery, Allie Gonino

Typical Lifetime Network nonsense about the victimized woman with terribly poor taste who hopes that running away will solve her problems only to learn the hard way when she gets tracked down. In this shameless outing, we have Vaugier faking her and her daughter's death in an attempt to escape her physically abusive husband. Blah, blah, blah; same old routine: she gets a new life, her daughter grows up not remembering anything, she meets a nice guy (Flanery), the fairy tale ending is just a grasp away, and then all of a sudden the bad guy from the past (Sergei) shows up. This cookie-cutter garbage could be somewhat bearable if it didn't consist of melodrama triggered by acts that would otherwise be considered downright moronic if only the protagonists weren't so unlucky. Nice climax—apparently, any dimwit can be inspired by watching NORTH BY NORTHWEST in film class.

*½ (out of four)

Bad writing, bad acting, bad plot. Weak low budget movie. Vaugier is the worst actress. She says im smarter and stronger now? Really you are getting people close to you killed and almost killed. You leave all of your change identity papers information at the house of your crazy ex husband who finds it? You get your best friend killed and you have no remorse. What happened to all of the dead people left behind in this movie? I guess the police let that go. Then they just move on to a pool scene, with the dopey daughter and boyfriend with vaugier lounging by the pool like nothing ever happened? Dimwitted and selfish. This is the most empty headed movie and shame on whoever wrote it. On top of all of that i had to look at vaugier's over plucked eyebrows thru the whole thing. Its a mess, dont waste your time.

Watched the trailer thinking A) looks like a complete repeat of Enough with JLo; which while I'm a fan of hers, it was pretty cheesy itself, but was way better than this. I watched til the end but yelled at the tv exceeding as it was just ridiculous. Gave it a 4 because like a train wreck, you just had to stare. Watch it if you want a B grade movie to laugh at.