it is totally unbelievable that anyone that age [seven years old] would not remember their own parents clearly.

Kathy Rhodes’ (Molly Hagan) seven year old daughter Michelle disappeared on the way to school. Now, twenty years later, the arrival in town of twenty-seven year Michelle Jacobs (Sofia Mattsson) sparks off an obsession: has Kathy’s little girl somehow returned to her?

The Mystery of Michelle a.k.a. Long Lost Daughter is an entertaining TV movie and feature length debut from writer Joe Ryan Laia. The characters are generally sympathetic and believable. However, Kathy’s obsession with Michelle generally lacks the edge or menace required to make this movie really pop, except suddenly and therefore somewhat jarringly towards the end, and I feel this is a missed opportunity for Laia as it would have been easy to fix in a redraft. The movie therefore often plods along rather than zips.

The ending is fairly satisfying but also curious: what was apparently meant to be the cherry on the cake showing the sweetness and humanity of Michelle Jacobs instead comes across as giving her rather sociopathic tendencies. A bit of a discordant misstep to end the story with. But the most curious aspect of the plot, as it would be so easy to sort out and would have multiplied the drama tenfold, was Michelle’s age when she disappeared. She was seven. Not three. Not four. Not even five. But seven. The tension of the films depends on believing that Michelle’s own early memories of her real family could be confused and blurred. Yet it is totally unbelievable that anyone that age would not remember their own parents clearly.

None-the-less, there were some great scenes with neat writing and lovely acting, such as the tense dinner between Kathy, her husband, Michelle, and Michelle’s husband-to-be. This scene was very relatable, somewhat humorous, vaguely menacing, and the performance from Hagan really exuded guarded motherly love.

An entertaining 90 minutes.

3/5

© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry

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