Pregnancy Pact (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

Well-meaning going in, but ends like the rest

[celestial_princess · 5/10 · 14 February 2010]

With all the hype, I was hoping that "The Pregnancy Pact" would finally be able to put a realistic spin on the seriousness of teen pregnancy. I can give it credit for almost succeeding.

It starts out well enough. The school nurse (Camryn Manheim) has administered over 150 pregnancy tests during the school year, with 18 positive results. Her answer is to administer contraceptives, but head of the church committee Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis) says that contraceptives at school only encourages sex. Little does Lorraine know that her teenage daughter Sara has agreed to be a part of a 'pregnancy pact': She and her friends agree to become pregnant deliberately when their friend Rose becomes pregnant on accident 'so that our babies can grow up together'. Before long, a young reporter named Sidney (Thora Birch) returns to her hometown to get the scoop on the pregnancy spike. Then, we find out that Sidney has a skeleton in her closet, as well.

It's not that this movie is that bad, but it isn't great. The cluelessness of the teenagers is accurate, and so is Mrs. Dougan's optimism that her daughter would never get herself into such a predicament. Thora Birch's Sidney is a welcome breath of fresh air as the enterprising reporter who reveals the ignorance of these girls and the importance of 'choice'. The fact that this movie dared to touch on the option of abortion was what I thought made this movie different, because whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, abortion is just as open an option as keeping the child or putting the child up for adoption.

What brought this movie down was that it copped out halfway through on everything that could have made it stand out. By the second half, when the truth finally comes out, it becomes very predictable: Sara's relationships with her parents and boyfriend hits the skids; the town is scandalized; Rose, the 'bad girl' who hatched this crazy scheme, gives birth to a sick baby; Sara drinks herself into a near-coma after her boyfriend Jesse says he wants nothing to do with a 'liar' like her; and Sidney reveals to her boyfriend and the world that what he thought happened all those years ago with them, didn't. The closing shots (Rose and Sara as teenage mothers...they didn't include the fates of the other participants of the pact) were what irritated me most. Even though the voice-over from Sidney was about the difficulty of choices to be made and the rigors of teenage motherhood, the message on the screen seemed to be "Bad girls get bad babies; good girls get good babies", and that is at best misleading since even people who follow the baby books to the letter get babies with problems. See it if you must, but don't expect any Emmy-nominations for this one.

Witless Teens.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 10 February 2011]

What I expected from this LMN movie was a soap opera in which a happy family's daughter turns up unexpectedly pregnant. The scenario then calls for the husband to go ballistic, the teen-aged daughter to be buried under a mountain of contingencies, and the mother -- after overcoming her initial shock -- to straighten things out. It wouldn't have been a surprise if the baby's father had been a psychopath who left her behind to deal dope out West, but then there would have been the shy, studious, not unhandsome class brain who has always loved her from afar. The nerd would replace the delinquent in the daughter's affections and the future would begin to look pretty rosy overall.

I'm reluctant to spin out more of this formulaic crap without a paycheck.

Instead, although I caught this in only bits and pieces, I have to say it was rather better than that. It's roughly based on a real story of a pact among teen-aged girls in pretty little Gloucester, Massachusetts. All agree to get pregnant early in their teens so they can stay together, buy their babies matching outfits, and live comfortably with the fathers after they graduate.

A young woman who makes a living by being a blogger (can you do that?) comes to investigate and finds much of the community complacent and in denial. The school nurse wants to introduce sex education and distribute condoms. Nancy Travis is the mother of a virginal teen and she's against sex education and all that filthy stuff for the same reason some of our legislators and governors oppose it -- it's like giving the kids a license to have sex. Some of us oppose the distribution of condoms in third-world countries where AIDS is rampant for similar reasons. Gee, if you give them condoms, they'll have sex! Nancy Travis bumps up against reality when her daughter becomes pregnant. At that point, the movie begins to examine the genuine difficulties attendant upon teen pregnancies. First, the kids are living in a kind of fantasy world in which a baby is a wind-up toy that loves you no matter what. The reality is that having a dependent child is more like attaching one of those ball and chain devices that we see prisoners wearing in cartoons. Unless, that is, you want to drop out of school and cut off your future, or you happen to have a grandma into whose lap you can conveniently drop your offspring. The movie examines these problems in some detail, and realistically.

The photography around Gloucester is well done. I've always liked Cape Anne so I may be prejudiced. The seasoned actors, including Travis and the school nurse, deliver the goods. The girls, for a change, look exactly like ordinary high school sophomores. They're not thirty-year-old gussied-up starlets. They're plain for the most part, just like the girls I went to high school with. Of course, in this case, they're all sleeping eagerly with their boy friends, which MY high school dates never did, the uptight prudes.

On the minus side, the musical score belongs to the genre. Much of the acting is poor. The plot has disjunctions. (I still don't know how you make a living as a blogger.) And the direction is watery and pedestrian.

These teens aren't stupid, but they're inexperienced and they're missing half the evolutionary problem. I'm an anthropologist and I have slight doubt that they're hard wired to produce babies. But pregnancy represents an extraordinary investment on their part. Each girl is born with all the eggs she's ever going to have, a bit more than 300, and each month presents her with a complicated question about fertilization. The answers she comes up with will affect the rest of her life, and that's what these girls don't understand.

The boys have no such problem. Every ejaculation contains millions of sperm cells, any one of them capable of producing a child. They're even ORGANIZED. After fertilization, the left-out sperm from the donor seem to form a barrier against the advance of alien sperm, just in case there was more than one partner, as in a gang bang. A man can afford to be profligate with his sperm. A woman has to choose a mate who will care for her and for the offspring, preferably one who is strong, healthy, powerful, and rich. I'm not being cynical. Those are just the facts of life.

Well, anyway, I applaud this production, not because it's a gripping emotional experience but because we seem desperately in need of a little enlightenment along the lines that it provides. After all, it was NOT just the soap opera it might have been.

Cheesy but addictive Lifetime movie -ripped from the headlines

[juneebuggy · 6/10 · 17 February 2015]

Yup this is a Lifetime movie. So its kinda cheesy but as usual it also sucks you in. I do remember this story in the news. Crazy, naïve teenagers all getting themselves pregnant at the same time because of a pact to stick together.

I enjoyed Thora Birch as Sidney Bloom, the internet blogger who travels back to her old high school in Gloucester, Massachusetts to investigate the sudden rash of teen pregnancies. The teens give an accurate performance of angst and bad decisions and we also follow a school nurse (Camryn Manheim) who fights with administration.

The townsfolk (and highlighted teen's Mum) were so ignorant in their thinking, raising money for more daycare at the school but refusing to offer a condom machine or even consider giving out contraception to students! 03.13

Like a train wreck

[lwaldo25 · 3/10 · 30 January 2010]

*******CONTAINS SPOILERS******** Out of morbid curiosity I watched this movie knowing about the back story of Gloucester High School when CNN was reporting this story about the surge in teen pregnancies in the small town more than a year ago. I can and can't believe Lifetime would go to the trouble of making this into a movie, but then again Hollywood will buy anyone's story and make a movie out of it... "Octo Mom" coming soon!

Other than the stereotypes portrayed (the religious right wing mom, the concerned liberal school nurse, the rebellious/clueless teens) really the only character I could get into was the blogger/reporter played by Thora Birch who infiltrates the group of pregnant teen girls to try to find out WTF is really going on. As her character transitions from being judgmental to becoming more empathetic, the message in the end is clear. If you are a pregnant young teen, regardless if you choose adoption, abortion or keep the baby to raise yourself, there are no easy solutions.

If this movie in any way helps communities have more open discussions about all forms of teen pregnancy prevention, whether it be about abstaining or using birth control perhaps we will see a decrease in these teen pregnancy numbers once again. This movie, even though it was like slowing down in traffic to watch a car accident, definitely did not glamorize the realities of having a baby and if it helps to drive home the point in future sex-ed classes around the country, then maybe some good will come from its existence.

Insultingly bad

[uwprof · 1/10 · 23 January 2010]

This movie was insulting to women and men. The entire film blames the girls for getting pregnant throughout. The only thing that comes close to addressing the role that the boys had in this was when Jesse says, "I should have pulled out or bought condoms!" Well, duh. These girls did not get pregnant by themselves, and yet the film treats them that way. Its moralistic overtones were also over the top agonizingly bad. Honestly, we all know teen pregnancy is bad. There is no real depth in why these girls got pregnant, what the town was like to live in, where they saw their futures being, etc. The dialogue was unbelievable, the characters stereotyped and sad. The music was dire--it was as bad as Secret Life of the American Teenager--probably by the same person. It was painful to listen to. In all, an awful movie. I can't think of a single redeeming element to this film.

Another Lifetime Loser

[jazzfan1948 · 2/10 · 27 January 2010]

I cannot believe that I wasted time watching this. I kept waiting for it to get better, or even to make some sense. I'm afraid this could be a career-killer for some talented people who obviously needed a paycheck.

The only valuable lesson is that religion-driven communities tend to be so complacent and smug that instead of embracing their children and building family values, they actually just set them adrift in life with absolutely no clues about sex/sexuality (with or without birth control), career and family life, or the nitty-gritty facts about pregnancy and parenthood (with or without abortion).

It would be all to easy to get into socio-political issues here, but to refocus on the movie, it's sufficient to say that it's poorly plotted, badly written, photographed to mediocre TV standards, and features boring, bad music. And is it really possible for someone to actually earn a full-time living as a blogger? I always thought it was a hobby for the socially inept or a part-time business activity like a customer newsletter. Just as it would be bad to present teenage pregnancy as appealing, I think it's misleading to present a part-time activity as a true career opportunity.

Anyway, next time I will be sure to pass up a Lifetime movie for a rerun of Criminal Minds or NCIS (or Two and a Half Men, for that matter).

Pregnancy Pact-Imitation Bimbos With Narrow Minded Society ***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 29 May 2010]

The picture is trying to depict that much more must be done to avoid teen pregnancy.

We have quite a story going here with 4 girls in a rural Massachusetts town agreeing to become pregnant. They don't realize the consequences of their actions. In addition, their lives are dull and their goals in society are limited. Getting married and having kids is all they want. Sounds like a time when the thought of girls going to college was looked upon as ludicrous.

We have a principal of a high school who really doesn't know or want to know what's going on until he confronted with the issue. A reporter, formerly from the town, returns and reveals to her ex-boyfriend, now wed with children and an assistant principal in the school, that she gave up their child, and did not abort it as she claimed.

Nancy Travis is wonderful in the part of the mother, president of the council who is against intervention even when her own daughter becomes president.

Serious subject matter is dealt with honestly, but more passion was needed here.

A shrug of the shoulders and that is about it...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 13 January 2013]

I guess you have to live in or near Gloucester for this movie to be interesting, or have an interest in local politics for at least. All throughout this movie I sat with an empty feeling and sort of not really caring, because the events in the movie seemed stupid and didn't appeal to my interest in any way.

The story is about teenagers apparently making a pact for them all to become pregnant and have children about the same time, so their children can grow up together, play together and become best friends, like the teenage girls themselves are. But being teenagers, they are not aware of the consequences and hard work being pregnant and having a child is. And the toll the consequences have on their families and the ripples in society of living in a small community.

Some of these teenagers have little respect for themselves or their pregnancy, as they smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. Plus their whole attitude to the situation was just infuriating. And the movie is based on real events, which can only make you think why some people are that ignorant. But, as I started out with saying, this appealed little to me, because I live nowhere near where this allegedly took place.

As for the acting in the movie, well, people did adequate jobs, but I can't really say that any particular performance stood out. It was fairly blend and mediocre.

I am sure that this movie have appeal for an audience who have an interest in events such as those portrayed in the movie. But for those of us who watch movies for a solely entertainment purpose, then "Pregnancy Pact" offers very little.

Plays like an extended ABC Afterschool Special

[zpzjones · 3 January 2012]

I don't know the complete facts upon which this movie is based. All I know is what was splattered across the cable media and other concerning teen pregnancy spike in Gloucester Massachusetts. While the story is considered fiction based on true events, unplanned teen pregnancy in the United States has always been an issue going back to at least the 1970s. I generally thought the film was well acted especially by the young teen girls. When the phrase 'Pregnancy Pact' is used one gets the vision of the girls stacking their hands up high and saying "All For One, One For All", sort of like Alexander Dumas 'The Three Musketeers'. I just found it humorous. Since ABC doesn't do Afterschool Specials anymore, Lifetime has picked up the task and this film has all the feel of a traditional afterschool special.

Different than what I thought

[koolkat_333333 · 6/10 · 28 October 2013]

I was dying to see this movie as we did a lot stuff at school on Juno and the whole teen pregnancy thing in my media class and really wanted to see if this movie added the "hype" about pregnancy that the media is always talking about. I was mistaken. If your expecting awesome characters with a bubbly cute and cool storyline this one is not for you but at the same time it does dive right into the teen pregnancy and high school issues while still being able to quickly brush over the main points. In the beginning, the movie starts off in a little high school in a tight-knit community that does not provide birth control and girls in certain cliques want to be pregnant and have a baby whether the boyfriend or guy wants to or not. A reporter comes back to her home town as a rapid number of teen pregnancies spikes interest for her teen web page. Then the notion of a "pact" between a group of girls comes out and becomes the hottest topic of the week in the end the reporter tries to help the girls in the so called "pact", causes a bit of trouble and eventually finds out the real truth. In my opinion I was a bit disappointed with the movie but found it quite interesting as it follows a slight documentary type feel and can actually make you think. I also like the fact that after the first girl has her baby the movie was able to show her in pain and regretting having the baby and not loving the child and really struggling being a parent, giving the young girls watching the movie the actual fact that teen pregnancy is not fun and all cute little babies and laughs.

ripped from the headlines

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 29 October 2015]

In 2008, a media firestorm showcases the rash of teenage pregnancies in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Three months before, internet blogger Sidney Bloom (Thora Birch) returns to her high school alma mater to report on a suspected story on teen pregnancies. Everybody is ignoring the situation except nurse Kim Daly (Camryn Manheim). She is powerless to institute changes. Lorraine Dougan (Nancy Travis) leads the conservative locals and her daughter Sara has been trying to get pregnant to fit in with her friends.

The story is ripped from the headlines. It's one of those Lifetime movies but I rather they fictionalize the whole thing to add more drama. Some of these girls are good actors but the characters are too annoying. The story has too many elements of a bad movie-of-the-week. There could be an interesting movie from this material. I like some actors but they don't add up to a great movie.

Let go of rational thinking and let the writers take you for a ride.

[novamarkseattle · 8/10 · 30 October 2012]

Can anyone understand the mind of a teenager? Why don't teenagers better understand consequences, and why are so many in such a hurry to grow up? These questions burn in the mind of every parent of a certain age, and this movie, short of providing concrete answers, is one of the best treatments I've seen on the subject.

Many movies ask the audience to accept extraordinary circumstances: a flying elephant, for example. Screen writers call this "suspension of disbelief," and are careful not to exceed the ability of the audience to wrap their mind around a premise. This movie is more difficult than others because the premise hits very close to home; it invites challenge. Did four teenage girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts intentionally try to get pregnant? We'd like to think not, but the possibility makes an excellent theme for a movie, and the writers leapt at it, taking full advantage of this opportunity to give full treatment to the important subject of teenage pregnancy. The temptation will be to view the teenage characters through a rational perspective and dismiss the movie as being just as stupid. Yes, the main characters were stupid, but there's much more to it than that. You will enjoy the movie much more if you exercise your empathy skills and try to identify with the characters. The writers made it easy to do so; my compliments to them.

The result was both clinical and artful. And while the movie, at times, lacked drama and emotion, I was able to identify with the main character, which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The other components of the movie were satisfactory. The plot was sufficiently unpredictable, and the ending did not disappoint.

After watching this movie, you will have learned the most important lesson in parenting: Children are born without knowledge. Parents (and in my opinion, teachers, too) must explain things over and over again in a variety of ways and in a variety of voices. What works for one kid, may not work for another. The important thing is to keep trying and don't just assume that the child gets it.

The Pregnancy Plot Hole

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 1 May 2015]

In voices steeped with shock, CNN's Anderson Cooper and some less-famous newsreaders report on a story involving high school girls who made a pact to get pregnant at the same time. The opening reveals, "This film is the story of a fictional 'pregnancy pact' set against actual news reports from June 2008, and although some of the locations and public figures are real, any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental." The young women have sex because they think raising babies at the same time will be fun. They want to dress them in cute little matching outfits and go to the park...

Gloucester, MA graduate Thora Birch (as Sidney Bloom) hears about the rise in pregnancy at her old high school. She's a professional video blogger and decides the spiking pregnancy rate will be a good Internet story. Arriving home with a secret past, Ms. Birch befriends pretty 15-year-old Madisen Beaty (as Sara Dougan). The red-haired teenager decides to bag (okay, no bag) cute basketball player Max Ehrich (as Jesse Moretti)...

"The Pregnancy Pact" is probably good in bringing topics up for discussion among young students and, hopefully, some trusted adults. As a story, it doesn't hold up well. It's difficult to believe events unfolded as they did on screen. We wonder, even though Mr. Ehrich appears mature for his age, how a 16-year-old has continued success with the withdrawal method. Their high school has "day care" for students' babies, but nobody seems to know much about how they got there. The leader of the group exclaims, "It hurts!" and doesn't even know what the word "pact" means...

From the opening, the high school looks too sexy and unsupervised to be a special school. Birth control can be more than abstinence, condoms and the withdrawal method. The birth control pill would have given the girl's pan to "get pregnant" more credence. She's not responsible for the "gift from God," if he's the one deciding to "pull out." It doesn't make sense. However, since she lied about the pact, the basic story still works.

***** The Pregnancy Pact (1/23/10) Rosemary Rodriguez ~ Madisen Beaty, Thora Birch, Jesse Moretti, David Clayton Rogers

Choices have consqeunces.

[setorres-59664 · 5/10 · 10 April 2023]

There is a saying that no one is really ever ready to have a baby. While that is true to an extent a young girl is never ready to have a baby. This movie follows the lives of a group of girls who made a pact to have a baby. It shows the true reality of some people out there. The educational system and sometimes families don't prepare children about being safe. Whatever the reason is whether it be religion or something else the schools and home don't speak about sex. We follow a woman who goes back to the town she grew up in and tries to seek the truth about what is going on with these girls and why there is such a high rate of pregnancies. The girls learn the hard way that it's not as "fun" being pregnant and trying to live their lives. They make poor choices that result in consequences.

Libido teach it learn it love it

[yelsinnestfort · 8/10 · 23 March 2023]

The script is just below what I want it to be. It's almost there just a once over or maybe it would've been better to have been a TV show. So you live in a town where no one appreciates the libido they demonize it in women and or men, and give you no common sense options other than abstinence the movie. They don't get enough of the men's reaction in this and I mean the fathers damn juxtaposed to that mothers to be that would've been interesting for me. There's just too much talking at the characters which makes them defensive and want to run away, if not physically, and mentally because they really don't take kid good care of themselves go to teenager, drinking and smoking while pregnant. That was hilarious and way too realistic. Remember people need more than abstinence.

A Modern Salem Witch Trial?

[lavatch · 8/10 · 26 December 2019]

Based on the true story of an alleged "pregnancy pact" formed by a group of high school girls in 2008, this film explores the reasons why the students would completely set aside their education and future careers and give themselves over to producing babies. The film is told from the perspective of a journalist running a "video blog," who returns to her home town to cover the story.

Of course, the setting of Gloucester, Massachusetts recalls a similar event just to the south in Salem in the late seventeenth century. The notorious Salem Witch Trials began as a harmless prank in the forest performed by school girls. But it escalated into the groundless accusations of the townspeople when the girls felt the pressure to identify and condemn innocent people as conspiring with the devil.

In the case of the kids at Gloucester High School, their lives were apparently so empty that they felt the need to fill up their bellies with little babies without considering the realities and responsibilities of parenting. There was the same level of peer pressure exerted on them as was the case for the Salem girls, who casually accused Salem residents as heretics.

The film takes great pains in showing how parents, school administrators, the media, and society at large contributed to the girls' longings to become pregnant as a badge of honor. The unanticipated consequences of childbirth, child rearing, expenses, and the surprise with which the boys learned that they would become fathers were detailed especially well by the journalist named Sydney (Syd), as she conducted interviews and prepared her podcasts.

Syd herself had become pregnant with a child by Brady, who is now the hopelessly confused dean of students at the high school and is now happily married with a brood of children that might be called the Brady Bunch. Syd and Brady renew their past acquaintance, and Brady learns for the first time that Syd placed her little boy up for adoption, while lying to him that she had an abortion.

While attempting to present an objective account of the pregnancy epidemic, Syd also seeks to come to terms with her own experience. In the film's closing scene, she truly speaks from the heart, while offering a cautionary warning to unsuspecting youth about the untoward consequences of teen pregnancy.