The Elizabeth Smart Story

This was one really good movie to put it simply. It is about the whole Elizabeth Smart story from when she was kidnapped to when she was rescued. The portrayal of the characters was really good. I liked how they showed Elizabeth with Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda with good detail yet still keeping it as a reasonable level. This was a really good movie and I am so glad I taped it. I have had people borrow it from me and I have received nothing but good thoughts about it. A really well made movie.

This movie I have thought has been a great movie. It heartwarming yet touching. The characters who portrayed in the movie did a way beyond excellent job. I could feel the pain and suffering of the family, and the intenseness Elizabeth must of felt from her captors.The girl who played Elizabeth did a superb job and so did the girl who portrayed Elizabeth's sister. The couple who portrayed her parents did an awesome job. I like the man who portrayed Ed Smart. You could really feel his pain in the movie. Though I firmly believe the filmed was filmed too close after Elizabeth's return, I worry about how Elizabeth may feel now that this movie was shown. She has gone through as some of us may know, beyond torture then what was shown in the movie. Or maybe her seeing this movie is a healing process. We will never know what Elizabeth personally went through, but at least we know she is safe and warm with her family, with still a long struggle ahead.

Having been raised by a mother that was exactly the same as Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper ... I can tell you that this movie gave me a new set of nightmares to deal with. Which speaks volumes in regards to the acting and directing. I would imagine that Elizabeth Smart's life must also be full of nightmares ... and this will continue throughout the remainder of her life.

As seems to be the norm in these abduction cases, the police continue to make life even worse for the victims of these crimes against families. In this case, even though the abduction is witnessed by Elizabeth's younger sister ... the police still go after the parents. On the other side of the coin, it often is a parent that is the guilty party ... Jon-Bonet Ramsey ... but, with a witness, in this case ... a lot of time was wasted on trying to pin the crime on the parents. The person they tried to finally pin it on looked nothing like the real monster, as said by the only witness. Unfortunately, the police pretty much ignored that witness.

Believe this ... there are plenty of people, out there, that are exactly like the abductor of Elizabeth Smart. BELIEVE IT!

In June 2002, 14 year old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at knifepoint from her home in Salt Lake City by the deranged Brian David Mitchell and taken as his wife/concubine/sex slave. Mitchell – who called himself Emmanuel – was a religious nut whose wife Wanda Barzee was totally under his control.

When all the leads to Elizabeth's probable abductor dried up, she was written off as dead by the police, or as good as. She was found 9 months later a mere 16 miles away. This TV film was released less than a year after she was found; Mitchell would not stand trial for more than 7 years due to issues relating to his competency; it was only then that the full shocking truth came out. Leaving that aside, "The Elizabeth Smart Story" was made not only as an historical document but for a wider audience, so the multiple rapes Elizabeth suffered would probably have been omitted anyway. Rather, the film focuses on her family and partly on the deranged Mitchell. The film-makers have probably taken a few liberties with the story, but what is not shown because of the chronology is what a truly remarkable young woman Elizabeth has become, indeed there seems to be a pattern with such cases that the more shocking the suffering of the victims the more they rise above it, while those who suffer trivial or even questionable sexual assaults continue to make the most noise like the empty vessels most of them are.

I did not know the story going into this, though I was aware that it was based upon something that really happened. If it truly had something to do with the creation of the Amber Alert, then I can see why they'd make a movie out of it. This, in spite of how unusual the concept itself can seem, feels authentic from start to finish, with the one brief exception being when the line "do what you feel in your heart" is spoken; nobody actually talks like that, in fact, outside of Hallmark and Disney, no one would ever utter anything *that* corny. Apart from that, the dialog is great. The plot is engaging and develops consistently throughout. Pacing is quite good, I was seldom bored. The acting is marvelous, even the children aren't half bad. This is well-directed, and it's no wonder that the guy went on to do Lost and Prison Break. The script is well-written, and sequences may genuinely hold surprises for you here and there(I sure did not see them coming; among other things, the ending played out differently than I thought it would. There is disturbing content in this. I recommend this to any fan of films dealing with kidnapping. 7/10