53 Days: The Abduction of Mary Stauffer

Meh. True stories that have an underlying criminal element to them such as this abduction of a mother and daughter can appear to be suspenseful merely based on the action(s) of the perpetrator(s). This is a TV Lifetime film that stars Alyson Hannigan (TV star of How I Met Your Mother) in the role of the real life abducted mother and school teacher Mary Stauffer. Personally, I don't know how a teacher/mother is supposed to act over her 53 day period of abduction with her young daughter held hostage with her so I can only provide my opinion on whether this film was believable or not.

Unfortunately even with the factual evidence of the sequence of true events well documented Alyson Hannigan's performance would have you believe that her abduction and continued rape, night after night was a ho hum event. Maybe because Lifetime is a cookie cutter process, with limited costs and time to write a script, select the actors, tape the film and bring it to the small screen, they deliberately have a formula that does not provide sufficient time, costs and cast to warrant any consideration for an Emmy (or two) performance(s).

I am glad I watched the film before reading the historical events just so that I kept an open mind. Now that I have seen this Lifetime TV film, and read the background info on the criminal, 29-year-old Ming Sen Shiue (played drably by Howie Lai) I can close the book for good. It's a drab time waster that I cannot recommend anyone watching.

I give it a so-so 5 out of 10 IMDB rating

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

Over the top tamed down version of events. Made for tv event, really.

These true stories SHOULD be treated as true stories and not some cleaned up version. It's a disservice.

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.

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.