Le terrible secret de ma mère

Melissa Joan Hart as Joanna and Lizzie Boys as her daughter, Lucy, both shine in this Lifetime movie about a woman who is essentially, a pack rat and will not part with anything. It gets so bad that she loses her husband and her 2 older children move out. Lucy and her mom keep her secret well guarded. Their house looks like a wall-to-wall garage sale. I never knew that this was actually a sickness, The movie has an unhappy ending, though. More like this!!!

This movie was almost disturbing to watch, which means the lead character, Melissa Joan Hart killed it in this role! You could really feel that she has a disorder and the moments she freaks out in the movie are that of a real life hoarder. I do wish the movie had a more uplifting ending, but not all stories have a happy ending.

This was really decent up until the last 20 min when it went completely off the rails. Missed opportunity for redemption and a better ending. Two stars for great acting by Melissa Joan Hart and Lizzie Boys but this was truly awful. No idea what the writers or producers were thinking here but it doesn't add up.

I watched this last night on one of the local tv channels. I know it is a two year old movie from Lifetime channel which I do not have.

The subject of OCD is very compelling to me personally as I have watched the hoarder shows from another channel. This is the first bona fide hoarding movie I have seen. I also like that this Lifetime movie was not about cheerleaders, or home invasions, or abductions, or jealous nannies, etc. I had been trying to wean myself off the Lifetime type I call them "suburban living environment" type movies. But when I saw this last night on Global tv, I thought I'll give it a watch for a little while to see how it goes and of course I ended up watching from the point (after I found it through channel surfing) til its end.

I think if the mother (Melissa Joan Hart who I agree with others who said she did a great job acting the part) had just had her puffer or inhaler either in a pocket or on a necklace around her neck could have reached for it easier and avoided passing out when she was I think really giving it an all out effort the last half hour to clean up her hoard.

I also wish that her daughter could have called 911 to get her mum help before it was too late. I do however understand why she lagged doing it (imagination running wild of possible future scenario of her hoarding being broadcast and so on). I am relieved that there are laws in place to prevent that sort of thing. This I was unaware of until I read that from another poster's review in here.

There is so much more I could say but I am too wordy as it is. I do agree with another poster that there should be a follow-up or a sequel to this. I have ocd troubles to a certain extent more along the line of neatness, cleaning, symmetry and so on like that. I hope my particular problem doesn't go opposite as this poor lady's did in this movie.

There are just so many problems with this movie! I've always liked Melissa Joan Hart so I thought I'd watch. It was mediocre at best. They barely scratched the surface yet didn't go completely over the top until the end like a lot of these Lifetime movies do. It was about a teenage girl who is embarrassed by her mother who appears to have it all together at work as an intelligent hard working nurse until you see their house and the mom is a hoarder. As it turns out, she was a complete neat freak before the father left because of it and now she's gone the other direction. There are also 2 older siblings that have moved out and don't come around much. Well, in the end this takes a VERY DARK, DISTURBED AND UNDESERVED turn. And I'm saying this about a Lifetime movie mind you!! This is not the way you treat people with mental illness!! I wouldn't recommend this film on that alone.