Girl in the Closet

This Lifetime movie definitely holds your attention. Thankfully, it is not a true story but based on actual events of another actual family. Tami Roman quite convincingly plays Mia Smith, a horrible character, who ends up getting custody of her niece, Cameron, while her mother recovers from an aneurysm. But Mia is not your average guardian. She locks people up in her house and collects their benefits checks, sells them for sex, and batters them when they cross her. Cameron, unfortunately, ends up getting thrown in her basement and when her mother recovers, she discovers that her sister has disappeared and taken Cameron along with her. Eventually, police declare Cameron a missing person but her mother never gives up finding them. The acting and script were quite good but this movie is not for the faint of heart. Definitely recommended!!!

This movie is SO unrealistic, she had so many chances to escape and just didn't. The acting is absolutely terrible. It makes no sense that she couldn't find her daughter for years when she was staying with her aunt the whole time. The mom never once went by the aunts house to see if her daughter was there. She never got the cops involved with her missing daughter which is also so stupid and unrealistic. There was not a single good thing about this movie. I don't recommend this movie to anyone, it's a waste of time and it was actually hard to watch. I was literally in shock the whole movie cause it was so dumb! DO NOT WATCH!

The acting is NOT that great. The story has the girls leaving the house for other chores and to put out the trash - as if they cannot escape and they have them move from house to house and yet the basement looks the same. Firstly they need to change the title. It is just a badly done movie. It is a similar story to the girl in the basement but that had a good story and was well execute. When these movies are made - quite often there are details that do NOT make sense. And the little girl grew up in 6 yrs to a different age and she does NOT look at all like the little girl she was at least some similiar features...

This Lifetime movie is not fleshed out really well, but it's the idea and transferences that are pretty gripping and gritty. Suspend a little disbelief on the captivity plausibility issues before going in. To be fair, this concept has been done better several times, and on higher budget. A familiar variation to Girl in the Basement but still different, and still heartbreaking to know that this kind of trafficking is real, and in turn, inspires stories based on it. The acting is not academy award stuff, but if you level set on expectations going in, some might find this to be worth a watch. It's probably not going to brighten your day though.. depressing subject matter for sure.

Well, I must admit that this 2023 TV drama was actually better than I had anticipated. I figured that it would probably be another run-of-the-mill-and-dime-a-dozen type of drama. But still, since I hadn't heard about the movie at all prior to stumbling upon it, of course I opted to give it a chance.

Writers Sa'Rah Jones and Courtney Miller put together a storyline that proved to be entertaining and enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, because I don't consider involuntary confinement, torture and the like that took place in the movie as enjoyable. But it was a nicely told story, despite of it being one that dealt with some rather serious issues.

Director Jaira Thomas brought the storyline and script to the screen in a nice way, because the movie was entertaining from beginning to end. And it definitely helped that they had a great cast ensemble to bring the characters to life on the screen.

Of the entire cast, I was only familiar with Tami Roman (playing Mia) and Remy Ma (playing Patricia). But the cast ensemble in general put on good and convincing performances that added a lot of flavor to the movie.

If you enjoy dramas that are somewhat based on actual events, then I will actually say that "Girl in the Closet" was a surprisingly good movie. I was genuinely entertained from start to end here.

My rating of "Girl in the Closet" lands on a six out of ten stars.