Sam Ashe Arnold | Through the Shattered Lens

Years ago, Kathy Waters (Emily Alatalo) escaped from her abusive husband, taking her young son Noah with her. Now, Noah (Sam Ashe Arnold) is a senior in high school and a talented composer. The school band even plays one of his compositions at a football game and everyone in the stands applaud. It reminded of those old episodes of Degrassi where Marco would write some overwrought performance piece and all the students would respond by going, “Yeah, Marco!”

Unfortunately, Kathy and Noah are not getting along as well as they used to. They’re fighting and arguing constantly. Kathy is overprotective. Noah is …. well, Noah’s kind of a creep. Noah is always complaining about how his former best friend Ethan is now more popular than he is. (Ethan plays football. Noah …. composes orchestrual music. You do the math.) Ethan is mad because Noah is now going out with Ethan’s ex-girlfriend, Maddie (Tori Barban). At one point, Tori has to duck into a bathroom so she can throw up. This is a Lifetime film and that means you don’t throw up unless you’re pregnant and trying to keep it a secret.

Kathy is a real estate agent. That’s not a surprise as selling houses is right up there with owning a bakery or being a mommy vlogger as far as careers in Lifetime movies are concerned. One morning, she gets a notification that someone has entered one of the empty houses that she’s selling. Going to the house, she discovers the remains of a wild party. She also finds Ethan dead in a nearby shed.

Noah becomes the number one suspect. Soon, someone is spray-painting “MURDERER” across the front door of Kathy’s house. Kathy’s friends are refusing to talk to her. Detective Summers (Puja Uppal) is asking questions. Noah claims that he’s innocent but even Kathy begins to have her doubts after she discovers just how angry Noah can get. Noah’s father was abusivie. Did Noah inherit the violence gene?

As I mentioned earlier, Noah is kind of a creep and it is easy to imagine circumstances in which he could be guilty. The fact that Lifetime has lately featured several films featuring violent teenage boys also might lead one to suspect that Noah’s the killer. Well, fear not. This is a traditional Lifetime film and that means that Noah is not the murderer. Instead, he’s just an obnoxious teenager who needs to treat his mom with more respect. I will not spoil the movie by revealing the identity of the killer. That said, you should be able to guess who it is because there’s not that many people in the movie.

“Everyone Has Something To Hide!” the title announces and, as far as this film is concerned, I guess that’s true. Considering that Noah’s a musician, they could have made just a few adjustments to the script and called this movie While My Guitar Gently Weeps. As for the film itself, it suffers from a lack of likable characters. (When I say that Noah’s a creep, I mean he is really a creep!) But the film does deserve credit for fully embracing the melodrama. The film has it’s flaws but it still held my attention for 88 minutes.

After I finished up The Other Wife, I continued to clean out my DVR by rewatching Mommy’s Little Girl.

Mommy’s Little Girl, was premiered on Lifetime on March 19th, is a crazy little kid movie. How crazy? Well, the film is also known as Mommy’s Little Murderer and for good reason! Speaking for myself, I always enjoy a good crazy kid movie because this entire genre is built around an uncomfortable truth: Children are creepy! They’ve got those squeaky voices and they’re always staring and they don’t have a filter so you never know what they’re going to say to you. Even worse, it’s somehow considered socially unacceptable to snap at a stranger’s child, even if it’s obvious that stranger has no idea how to raise their children.

Plus, you have to consider that every serial killer was a child at some point. If a child did decide to kill you, he’d probably get away with it. You wouldn’t think to be cautious if you were alone with him because everyone assumes that children always have the best intentions. No investigator would give serious consideration to the possibility that you were murdered by a child. Even if the kid was arrested, he’d only be charged as a minor. He would ultimately end up with a clean record while you just ended up as some sort of dumbass ghost haunting the landfill where he dumped your body.

Seriously, people need to think about this stuff before they deal with children.

Consider Sadie Connell (Emma Hentschel), the title character of Mommy’s Little Girl. Sadie is only 11 years old and, as cute and innocent-looking as she may be, when we first meet her, she’s already killed at least one person. She arranged for her abusive grandfather to take a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs. In fact, not only did she kill her grandfather but she also stole his lighter. She claims that it’s a magic lighter and, despite being a non-smoker, Sadie finds many uses for that flame. For instance, she can use the lighter to threaten her dolls. And when a classmate bullies her, she uses the lighter to punish his prized action figures.

Over the course of the movie, Sadie commits a few more murders. She pushes people off cliffs. She poisons their food. At one point, she even places her hands over one unfortunate victim’s mouth and helps to suffocate her. Sadie is definitely a little bit psycho and yet, as a viewer, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her. Both her grandparents treated her so badly that you can’t blame Sadie for being a little bit bitter. As for her classmate with his precious action figures — well, nobody likes a bully.

At the start of the film, Sadie is finally reunited with her mother, Theresa (Fiona Gubelmann), who has issues of her own when Sadie was born and, as a result, allowed her daughter to be raised by her parents. However, Theresa now has her life together and is ready to raise her daughter! Sadie is so excited to finally have a family but she’s also extremely paranoid of losing that family. Some of the film’s best scenes come when Sadie fears that she’s about to be rejected and sent back to her grandmother. Sadie never becomes a one-dimensional villain. The end result is a Lifetime film that actually makes you think.

Keep an eye out for Mommy’s Little Girl!