Another paint-by-numbers movie from Lifetime that has you shaking your head that such things still get produced. Ariana Richards plays high school student Mickey Carlyle, a promising track star. Kurt Ansom (William Bumill) is Mickey's track coach from hell who pushes "his girls" to be the best they can be. Susan Blakely has a fairly empty role as Mickey's widowed mother.
Richards has that fresh scrubbed look typical of high school teenagers and she does a good job with what she's given, which is pretty bad. Her reactions to her coach's increasingly inappropriate actions are fairly authentic. And her tenative interactions with her beau are believable.
*SPOILER ALERT*
However, it's after Mickey is sexually assaulted by her coach that the movie goes off the deep end. Mickey stops going to track practice and starts skipping classes. When she sees him in the hall, she doesn't act frightened or freak out. He acts like nothing's happened. She acts like nothing's really happened. This is totally unrealistic. She even returns to practice, although she has little heart for it now. It's only when he attempts to assualt her again that she's jolted into telling her mother.
There's one scene that features Mickey's classmates individually telling her how awful they think she is for turning in the Coach. It is so hideously "time to gang up on the victim" time that you want to cringe. Then again, subtlety was never Lifetime's strong point.
Of course, there are the usual twists and turns. Will Mickey recover from her trauma? Will the awful coach be convicted? Will her friends believe her? It's all so hollow and predictible that you know what's coming.
Kudos to Richards ability to show her acting chops. But please get this kid a good agent who can find her some decent acting roles. This movie tanked.
Richards has that fresh scrubbed look typical of high school teenagers and she does a good job with what she's given, which is pretty bad. Her reactions to her coach's increasingly inappropriate actions are fairly authentic. And her tenative interactions with her beau are believable.
*SPOILER ALERT*
However, it's after Mickey is sexually assaulted by her coach that the movie goes off the deep end. Mickey stops going to track practice and starts skipping classes. When she sees him in the hall, she doesn't act frightened or freak out. He acts like nothing's happened. She acts like nothing's really happened. This is totally unrealistic. She even returns to practice, although she has little heart for it now. It's only when he attempts to assualt her again that she's jolted into telling her mother.
There's one scene that features Mickey's classmates individually telling her how awful they think she is for turning in the Coach. It is so hideously "time to gang up on the victim" time that you want to cringe. Then again, subtlety was never Lifetime's strong point.
Of course, there are the usual twists and turns. Will Mickey recover from her trauma? Will the awful coach be convicted? Will her friends believe her? It's all so hollow and predictible that you know what's coming.
Kudos to Richards ability to show her acting chops. But please get this kid a good agent who can find her some decent acting roles. This movie tanked.