Tu ne m'échapperas pas...

Caught this one while getting over a bad flu. I would say this is almost more Hallmarky in the sense you've got a late 30-ish woman leaving the big city to go back to her small town, only this time it isn't to help out with Aunt Irma's Christmas bazaar. It's about fleeing from a psycho ex, who tried to run her over with his car! And trying to kidnap the couple's kid and Psycho Daddy is then sent to the slammer for 15+. But, as is almost always the case with these movies, he's released early due to overcrowding and his 'good behavior'. His daughter (now in her teens) was secretly writing and calling Psycho Daddy while in prison and didn't know about his violent past. Mom then gets wind of his release (and the jailhouse calls & letters), tells her daughter Pycho-D is a nut case (not disclosing any of the volatile past to her daughter for some sort of reason) and high-tails it to Nowheresville USA. While there, she meets up with a petty and mousy, old high school acquaintance (who's so jealous and dumb she tells Psycho-D where Mom and daughter live), comes crawling back to an obviously kind and loving Martha Stewart-mother (who Mom detests for some reason) and falls in love with a handsome, buck of a cop. Reeks of Hallmark-but stalking, murder and calamity ensues. I gave it a 7 because I didn't lose braincells while watching this and wanted to see how things went with Mom and that tall, drink of water-buck of a cop.

The acting in the beginning was so bad that I almost stopped watching it. But, I stayed with it and the acting got better. Weird. The one thing that was hard to get past was the 30 year old actress with tons of forehead wrinkles playing a 15 year old. I mean.... it's not like they picked her because she's the best actress so then I would probably pick someone that's more in the age range and could act somewhat better. That part was just super annoying throughout the whole movie and it was hard to get into the movie because there was this old woman playing a 15-year-old that looked older than the mother. And the actress that played the mother was actually 20 years older than her but look the same age if not younger.

So, I guess basically what I'm saying is that the casting Directors that are really bad job.

Ok no need to go into the details of the movie or analyse it, suffice to say that Brian slash the cop slash mama's new boyfriend was absolutely useless! LOL.

Surprisingly this turned out to be a pretty well made and logically written thriller from Lifetime. An ex husband is abusive and even hits his wife with a car. He's sent to prison but 10 years later is being released. So the mother and daughter move back in with estranged grandma. However bad Daddy is in pursuit. Refreshingly the daughter is not a brat who defies her mother. It's good when those who should be on the same side are on the same side. Things are kept believable. Nothing too outrageous. Interactions with friends are interesting. The actors are good and they aren't too familiar.

Pretty marginal stuff here. Formulaic. The bad dad was your typical arrogant, self righteous, violent, super freak. The mom was your not so typical, pretty, sexy, self assured mom, despite all that she had been through.

There was the high school love interest, in the home town she moves back to, in order to get away from the super freak.

Little suspense. Little surprise. It was fairly easy to predict where this was all leading to.

I recommend avoiding this tiny little movie. The creators this film did not invest much into it. And it shows.