Lies My Mother Told Me (2005) Joely Richardson, Colm Feore, Hayden Panettiere, Jasmine Berg, Tim Henry, Judith Buchan, Kailin See, Joe Norman Shaw Movie Review

Lies My Mother Told Me (2005)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Hayden Panettiere in Lies My Mother Told Me (2005)

A Hustling Mind

Laren Sims (Joely Richardson - Fallen Angel) always was a bit troublesome for her parents and so when she buys lavish Christmas presents with stolen credit cards, leading to a 90 day prison term, they were not surprised. But even when she is released on parole she can't stop herself from shoplifting. Eventually, whilst under house arrest, Laren and her young daughter, Haylei (Hayden Panettiere - Raising Helen), flee leading to a decade of travelling around, a string of new identities and pulling cons where ever they go. Eventually Laren falls for and marries Lucas Mackenzie (Colm Feore - Paycheck), an attorney who Haylei dislikes. But with her unable to control her old ways Laren ends up on the swindle and when Lucas threatens to call the cops on her it forces her to take desperate measures.

The saying goes "a leopard can't change his spots" and that is what we get in "Lies My Mother Told Me" a made for TV movie which like many made for TV movies is inspired by actual events. As such for the first part of the movie we watch Laren, along with her daughter Haylei, move around the country, pulling various scams and thefts with Haylei often being used by her mother as part of her scams. And whilst this is a flit through some of what Laren did it is kind of interesting watching how her mind works and how she can turn it on when ever she needs to.

Now as I said "a leopard cannot change his spots" and as such we see how even having got married and living a good life with her attorney husband she can't stop herself from going back to her old ways. And as with so many of these Lifetime movies we have Laren's past coming back to haunt her and forcing her in to taking desperate measures, which whilst I won't tell you what they are I am sure fans of this sort of TV movies can guess some of what happens. And that is in a way an issue as not only is "Lies My Mother Told Me" kind of obvious to the way it will play out but it doesn't grab you as well as it could when the proverbial excrement hits the fast spinning thing.

But what "Lies My Mother Told Me" has is Joely Richardson who when she flashes those eyes, toys with the hair and tosses a smile at someone you can believe she is capable of scamming just about anyone, including her own kin. It is a perfect piece of casting as is to be honest Hayden Panettiere who makes believable that Haylie is the sort of daughter who loves her mum but is frustrated by her lying nature and knows full well that her mum even lies to her.

What this all boils down to is that "Lies My Mother Told Me" is an okay movie with a semi interesting storyline but in the end nothing special. In fact I am sure if it wasn't for the casting of Joely Richardson and Hayden Panettiere it would have ended up below par.


LATEST REVIEWS