My Daughter’s Deadly Date or Recipe for Abduction (2021 Lifetime)
Cast: Laurie Fortier, Daniel Grogan, Jesse Kove, Meredith Thomas, Tu Morrow
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Synopsis (via Lifetime)
When her daughter goes missing after the successful opening of her restaurant, mother Eve must take matters into her own hands to find out who abducted her daughter. Laurie Fortier, Tu Morrow star. (2021)
Thoughts
The movie starts in a restaurant; Eve fights for her life. The shots are dark, and the music is LOUD, so I’m not sure what is happening. Not a good start.
Cut to Eve on the opening of her world-renowned restaurant Tangata. Word of mouth is growing due to her daughter Grace’s social media skillz. Eve and Grace both have boyfriends who work at the restaurant. Max is a waiter with a 90’s hairstyle who appreciates Grace getting him the job and less so with her obsession with social media. Max follows Grace and watches her from the bushes way too early in the movie. He also has freakouts at work, which should get him fired.
Grace starts talking to another guy on social media and is generally disinterested in everyone and rude as hell. She is always on her phone and snarky to her mother. When she is kidnapped in a parking lot at night, I cheered. Bye, bitch. (Damn, she is only jumped.)
You can tell a lot about a Lifetime Movie in the first 20 mins. So far, we’ve had sloppy storytelling, too many montages, and the greatest hits of Lifetime stock music. Things aren’t looking great for this one.
Grace is inexplicably in a prom dress arguing with Mac the next day. She is annoying, and I couldn’t care less about her relationship with Max. It is a mystery, but some context would be good here. What is going on?
The movie gets better when hunk food critic/reporter Todd shows up. He tries the food at the restaurant, and we get another montage. Max has had enough of Grace and Todd flirting, and he freaks out and quits, creating a scene.
The article comes out quickly, and Todd did a good job talking up the food and Grace’s social media. The restaurant is overwhelmed, especially when Grace is abducted for a second time. The soundtrack and jump cuts do the heavy lifting to make this suspenseful. (Only, it isn’t.)
The editing is WiLD in this movie. (I’m sorry Wendy Elford-Argent, you edit a lot of Lifetime movies, this one just didn’t do it for me. Maybe you were just working with what you had?) There is a phone call scene with dramatic piano music, intercut with black and white flashbacks randomly. It is gratuitous editing that doesn’t add anything to the story—making the movie pretty much unwatchable.
Eve heads out in the middle of the night to investigate, and maybe she is attacked too? Something with a van and a taser. She cries in the car for a long time. Eve then tracks down Grace’s friend Bella to get more info. Not sure what that info adds up to or is. Then Eve finds messages, and they all flow around her like Ghostwriter.
Finally, Eve tracks down Max, who tells her that Grace broke up with him and is dating someone else. (Who is Todd.) The relationship is confirmed in the next scene where Eve finds a secret app with Todd and Eve’s canoodling pictures. Cue another montage of Eve zooming in to pictures set to mood music. Todd is also an adult dating a teenage girl, so I don’t like that.
James decides to handle things himself and is taken out in a parking lot by Taser Todd. Then Todd attacks Eve in her restaurant. We are at the beginning of the movie.
So it turns out Todd’s real name is something else. Bella (With extremely long nails) called Eve before getting attacked to layout some exposition about Todd dating some rich lady. Who cares!!!!!!
Eve wakes up tied to an oven that is leaking gas. Todd tells her that Grace found out about his rich fiance, and he kidnapped her to get her to delete the photos of the affair. Laurie Fortier screams about her daughter in a way that only she can. It is a redeemable moment in this movie because I always believe Laurie as an actress. So at least there is that!
Eve frees herself and screams for her daughter, eventually finding her. While on the back on an ambulance, Grace apologizes to her mother for being the worst the whole movie. It isn’t enough to make me like her, but it is nice she said she was sorry.
The restaurant reopens, and Eve makes french toast. So they are doing brunch now? That is cool. Bottomless mimosas are needed after this one.
Side Note
Minority Report: Grace, Cook, Bella,
Also Known as Recipe for Abduction or Deadly Abduction.
Reel One Entertainment and Cartel Pictures production.
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*** I’ve updated the rating system moving forward start 7/26/2021. Knives represent # of kills. Wine is over enjoyment (NOT a value judgment) on a 1-5 scale.
I will use the following tags for those who want to know watch or skip: Pour it Up (Would Recommend) or Put A Cork In It (Would Not Recommend)
Overall rating
Number of Kills: (0 Knives)
Enjoyment Level: 🍷 (1 glass of wine)
*Photo Credit: © 2021 Lifetime® | A+E Networks®
Live tweet along with @LifetimeUncork using the hashtag #MyDaughtersDeadlyDate
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