Stolen by My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story (2020 Lifetime)
Cast: Niecy Nash, Rayven Ferrell, Ta’Rhonda Jones
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
In the summer of 1998, Gloria Williams (Niecy Nash), reeling from a recent miscarriage, drove from her home in South Carolina and walked into a Jacksonville, Florida hospital posing as a nurse and took newborn Kamiyah Mobley (Rayven Ferrell) out of her mother Shanara Mobley’s (Ta’Rhonda Jones) arms.
Thoughts
July 10, 2014, we see a girl named Lexi in a basement apartment with her boyfriend confused and upset.
Sixteen years earlier, we get a voice-over of Lexi narrating the story of her mother, Niecy Nash AKA Gloria, and Charles trying to have a baby. Gloria has a miscarriage when she was pretty far along and pretends to be pregnant still. She also conveniently works in a hospital (and thus has scrubs on hand.) She goes to another state and convinces a patient to hand over her baby so she can ”bring the baby” to the nursery but she really steals that baby. Gloria is cool, calm, and collected while doing this. She even comforts and advises the mother who she is about to seal the baby from.
Gloria raises the baby as stories of the kidnapping air on the radio and television. The parents cry and are searching for their newborn named Kamiyah. She is overly protective and has renamed the baby Lexi. Gloria breaks up with Charles because she can’t trust him with her (stolen) daughter.
Flash forward to teenage Lexi, who is her mother’s everything. Gloria is a pillar in her church and even falls in love with a man in the choir name, Oskie. He movie in with his daughter Erica and her baby. Gloria is going to go back to school and get her. Her daughter wants to get a job too, but Gloria forbids it. Then she realizes that her daughter can never get a job without a birth certificate or social security card and tells Lexi that she is stolen.
We go back to the scene from the beginning of the movie with Lexi crying to her boyfriend. They smoke a flat blunt and have some SEX. Then she goes home and finds Gloria and Oskie fighting. She asks them to stop and wants to keep the kidnapping a secret. (She still smokes weed to cope tho.) Gloria finds her daughter smoking by a lazy river. As people float by in Intertubes, they pray.
Shanara Mobley is Lexi/Kamiyah’s birth mother, and she continues to search for her baby. Every year on her daughter’s birthday, she makes a cake and freezes it for Kamiyah. Little does she know that Lexi is stalking them on social media and using “GiggoSearch.com” to watch news stories about the kidnapping. Late at night, Lexi calls Shanara and hangs up. Shanara knows that it is her daughter and calls the number back on her birthday.
Cut to 12 months later, and Lexi is having trouble sleeping. She comes clean with her stepsister Erica. Erica tells detectives everything when they approach her in the park. We next get the repercussions of the investigation. Gloria lawyers up, and Lexi is mandated to submit a DNA test to find out if she is 100% that bitch. (She is Kamiyah.)
The police burst into her house and take Gloria and Alexis into custody. Gloria goes willingly, and Lexi is sassy as hell with the police. (I mean they do burst into her boyfriend’s house and they have weed!)
At the police station, Gloria apologizes, for turning her daughter’s life upside down and asks her to embrace her “bonus family.” No one ever died from too much love, after all. Lexi wants the woman who raised her to be with her. She cries and is even thoughtful enough to bring Gloria’s prescriptions and reading glasses.
Lexi/Kamiyah also gets a lawyer and is hounded by the press. She is living with her grandparents and is hesitant to embrace her birth mother. She visits Shanara, who is upset that Lexi is still in communication with Gloria. Shanara threatens to get a court order to keep her daughter away from Gloria.
May 2018 at the courthouse, Gloria ends up having a lot of support from the crowd? The trial happens, and Shanara recaps what occurred for the judge and says she wants her sentenced to death. Gloria takes the stand and talks about her mental state during the kidnapping and claims it wasn’t premeditated. This movie is pretty sympathetic towards Gloria. She was abused, lost custody of her other children, and had recently suffered a miscarriage… but she still kidnapped a baby, and her family lied about it to cover her ass. Gloria cries and apologizes for hurting Kamiyah, but not really too the biological mother. The production makes their final statement and says that Gloria is not a good person; she kidnapped a baby, had a car seat, and planned the whole thing. They ask for the maximum sentence of 22 years in prison.
Gloria gets 18, plus an additional five years in jail, to be served concurrently. Lexi/Kamiyah is devastated but continues to work in a diner, now that she has her paperwork. To make matters worse, her grandfather passes away after the sentencing hearing.
The hits just keep coming. Lexi facetimes with Gloria and gets a pep talk. Gloria tells Lexi to live her own life. She is planning on going to Florida for College and will be closer to both her families. Then they sing a song that I know I’ve heard, but could not for the life of me place. (Jill Scott? IDK!) while we get a montage of both actresses looking sad.
The movie ends with the real news story or Kamiyah/Lexi trying to balance the two families.
Side Note
Minority Report: The entire cast is POC actors. (Except for the police, judge, and trial lawyers.)
Robin Roberts Production (LOVE ROBIN ROBERTS!)
If Rayven Ferrell has not been tapped for a Foxxy Brown biopic Lifetime movie, she needs to be IMMEDIATELY.
Niecy Nash is a great actress and has had a great year. If you haven’t had a chance to see her work in When They See Us, check it out.
The soundtrack in this movie was distracting and a tad too melodramatic from my taste.
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Overall rating
🔪🔪🔪 (3 Knives)
🍷🍷 (2 glasses of wine required.)
*Photo Credit: © 2020 Lifetime
