Collection of Contrivances
After six years of being in a coma Marissa Davis (Nicole de Boer - My Mother's Secret) wakes and shocks the doctors with her determination to get back on her feet. But Marissa is suffering from post traumatic amnesia and barely remembers who she is let alone anyone else in her life. But after returning home to live with her mum, Rose (Iris Quinn), where she is reunited with best friend, Heather (Gina Holden - LA Apocalypse), and her politician husband, Cal Ward (Lochlyn Munro - All Yours), bits and pieces of her memory start to return whilst a scar on her abdomen leaves her initially intrigued. But after realising she gave birth Marissa starts searching for answers and her daughter whilst a reporter, Ethan Fox (Jason Cermak - Common Chord), tells her the accident which put her in a coma was a hit and run and the person who did it was never caught.
On a good day I might use the word elaborate to describe the plot to "Cradle of Lies" but today I prefer to use the words convoluted, contrived and ridiculously far fetched. And today I am going to say this review of "Cradle of Lies" contains spoilers because trying to describe the craziness which goes on in this made for TV movie without giving anything away would be impossible. As such if you don't want to know what happens in "Cradle of Lies", which is also known as "Where's My Baby?", well you know what to do... that's right read another one of my movie reviews.
So we have Marissa waking up from a coma with amnesia and slowly she starts to remember and learn things from her past. One of those is that she was involved in a hit and run although she has been told she crashed her car. Then she remembers that before the accident she was pregnant and expecting a baby girl but when she mentions this she is told her baby boy was born dead. Then there is her best friend Heather who has married Cal Ward, a politician, who is uncomfortable when ever Marissa is around so you can be pretty confident that he has a guilty conscience over something. Oh and Heather and Cal just happen to have a daughter who would be about the right age to be Marissa's. I will leave the spoilers at this point although I will say there are many more in "Cradle of Lies" including murders and cover ups.
Now all the above to me is extremely contrived and done in such an unsubtle manner that "Cradle of Lies" becomes one of those movies which you start wondering how ridiculous it can get before it comes to its inevitably dramatic climax, or is that anti-climax. Yet whilst it means it is impossible to enjoy this as a serious thriller it shifts towards being entertaining in almost a bad movie way despite appearing to have been done seriously.
What this all boils down to is that "Cradle of Lies" is the blend of contrived, convoluted and far-fetched which, with unsubtle direction and acting, makes this one of those TV movies which become entertaining but more in a bad movie sort of way.
