The Stranger Who Looks Like Me

I love old Lifetime movies (when they were good), and this movie qualifies. It's from the early '70's and it feels like it, but the acting is great, and what's wrong with a trip down memory lane? The young woman has a hard time trying to find her birth parents. It must be easier now, with the internet, and maybe kids who were adopted have more rights. In this story, she hits a lot of brick walls. My favorite part of the movie was the perhaps too-long rap session scene where adults who were adopted have this emotional sharing session with people who put their own kids up for adoption. It really took me back!

When looking up this movie to answer an inquiry, I was surprised to see it had no user reviews.

This was certainly a better than average TV movie, was well publicized when released, had two well known actors in the leads, and was directed by Larry Pierce, the director of Goodbye Columbus, the movie that introduced Ali MacGraw and had her best performance (a lot of us thought she could act based on it until Love Story proved us wrong.

Meredith Baxter is a young woman with adopted parents who is searching for her actual parents. Beau Bridges is a young man she becomes involved with on an identical quest. Whitney Baxter, the mom on the TV sitcom Hazel and Meredith's actual mother, makes a brief but important appearance at the movie's climax.

I haven't seen it since, but was pretty impressed at the time, no world beater, but nicely acted, written, and directed.

What more do you want from a TV movie?