Ao Resgate de Ashley

Yup this is a Lifetime movie. So its kinda cheesy but as usual it also sucks you in. I do remember this story in the news. Crazy, naïve teenagers all getting themselves pregnant at the same time because of a pact to stick together.

I enjoyed Thora Birch as Sidney Bloom, the internet blogger who travels back to her old high school in Gloucester, Massachusetts to investigate the sudden rash of teen pregnancies. The teens give an accurate performance of angst and bad decisions and we also follow a school nurse (Camryn Manheim) who fights with administration.

The townsfolk (and highlighted teen's Mum) were so ignorant in their thinking, raising money for more daycare at the school but refusing to offer a condom machine or even consider giving out contraception to students! 03.13

There is a saying that no one is really ever ready to have a baby. While that is true to an extent a young girl is never ready to have a baby. This movie follows the lives of a group of girls who made a pact to have a baby. It shows the true reality of some people out there. The educational system and sometimes families don't prepare children about being safe. Whatever the reason is whether it be religion or something else the schools and home don't speak about sex. We follow a woman who goes back to the town she grew up in and tries to seek the truth about what is going on with these girls and why there is such a high rate of pregnancies. The girls learn the hard way that it's not as "fun" being pregnant and trying to live their lives. They make poor choices that result in consequences.

I cannot believe that I wasted time watching this. I kept waiting for it to get better, or even to make some sense. I'm afraid this could be a career-killer for some talented people who obviously needed a paycheck.

The only valuable lesson is that religion-driven communities tend to be so complacent and smug that instead of embracing their children and building family values, they actually just set them adrift in life with absolutely no clues about sex/sexuality (with or without birth control), career and family life, or the nitty-gritty facts about pregnancy and parenthood (with or without abortion).

It would be all to easy to get into socio-political issues here, but to refocus on the movie, it's sufficient to say that it's poorly plotted, badly written, photographed to mediocre TV standards, and features boring, bad music. And is it really possible for someone to actually earn a full-time living as a blogger? I always thought it was a hobby for the socially inept or a part-time business activity like a customer newsletter. Just as it would be bad to present teenage pregnancy as appealing, I think it's misleading to present a part-time activity as a true career opportunity.

Anyway, next time I will be sure to pass up a Lifetime movie for a rerun of Criminal Minds or NCIS (or Two and a Half Men, for that matter).

In voices steeped with shock, CNN's Anderson Cooper and some less-famous newsreaders report on a story involving high school girls who made a pact to get pregnant at the same time. The opening reveals, "This film is the story of a fictional 'pregnancy pact' set against actual news reports from June 2008, and although some of the locations and public figures are real, any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental." The young women have sex because they think raising babies at the same time will be fun. They want to dress them in cute little matching outfits and go to the park...

Gloucester, MA graduate Thora Birch (as Sidney Bloom) hears about the rise in pregnancy at her old high school. She's a professional video blogger and decides the spiking pregnancy rate will be a good Internet story. Arriving home with a secret past, Ms. Birch befriends pretty 15-year-old Madisen Beaty (as Sara Dougan). The red-haired teenager decides to bag (okay, no bag) cute basketball player Max Ehrich (as Jesse Moretti)...

"The Pregnancy Pact" is probably good in bringing topics up for discussion among young students and, hopefully, some trusted adults. As a story, it doesn't hold up well. It's difficult to believe events unfolded as they did on screen. We wonder, even though Mr. Ehrich appears mature for his age, how a 16-year-old has continued success with the withdrawal method. Their high school has "day care" for students' babies, but nobody seems to know much about how they got there. The leader of the group exclaims, "It hurts!" and doesn't even know what the word "pact" means...

From the opening, the high school looks too sexy and unsupervised to be a special school. Birth control can be more than abstinence, condoms and the withdrawal method. The birth control pill would have given the girl's pan to "get pregnant" more credence. She's not responsible for the "gift from God," if he's the one deciding to "pull out." It doesn't make sense. However, since she lied about the pact, the basic story still works.

***** The Pregnancy Pact (1/23/10) Rosemary Rodriguez ~ Madisen Beaty, Thora Birch, Jesse Moretti, David Clayton Rogers

Can anyone understand the mind of a teenager? Why don't teenagers better understand consequences, and why are so many in such a hurry to grow up? These questions burn in the mind of every parent of a certain age, and this movie, short of providing concrete answers, is one of the best treatments I've seen on the subject.

Many movies ask the audience to accept extraordinary circumstances: a flying elephant, for example. Screen writers call this "suspension of disbelief," and are careful not to exceed the ability of the audience to wrap their mind around a premise. This movie is more difficult than others because the premise hits very close to home; it invites challenge. Did four teenage girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts intentionally try to get pregnant? We'd like to think not, but the possibility makes an excellent theme for a movie, and the writers leapt at it, taking full advantage of this opportunity to give full treatment to the important subject of teenage pregnancy. The temptation will be to view the teenage characters through a rational perspective and dismiss the movie as being just as stupid. Yes, the main characters were stupid, but there's much more to it than that. You will enjoy the movie much more if you exercise your empathy skills and try to identify with the characters. The writers made it easy to do so; my compliments to them.

The result was both clinical and artful. And while the movie, at times, lacked drama and emotion, I was able to identify with the main character, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The other components of the movie were satisfactory. The plot was sufficiently unpredictable, and the ending did not disappoint.

After watching this movie, you will have learned the most important lesson in parenting: Children are born without knowledge. Parents (and in my opinion, teachers, too) must explain things over and over again in a variety of ways and in a variety of voices. What works for one kid, may not work for another. The important thing is to keep trying and don't just assume that the child gets it.