Reviving Ophelia (2010)

Le Anne Dunley (Kim Dickens) arrives home to find her daughter Kelli having oral sex. She send Kelli to stay with her aunt Marie Jones (Jane Kaczmarek). Le Anne and Marie are sisters with differing styles. Marie and her husband Walter have Elizabeth who is around the same age as Kelli and goes to the same school. Elizabeth has possessive boyfriend Mark. Kelli starts to suspect Mark of disturbing behaviors but aunt Marie sees Kelli as the bad seed and Elizabeth as the perfect child. Mark hits Elizabeth but they pass a lie to her parents. Mark get more and more jealous of her male classmate. Cody tries to befriend Kelli but she distrusts guys in general.This is the classic Lifetime melodrama of abusive boyfriend and abused girlfriend. There are some good adult actors. I'm not familiar with the younger actors except for Joe Dinicol. He's generally pretty good. This is a melodrama without much tension or actual drama. It's paint-by-numbers. Elizabeth's delusions are almost as infuriating as Mark's violence. This is Lifetime at its Lifetimiest.

Reviving Ophelia is a great movie for older teenage girls. A little over-dramatic (okay, way over-dramatic) and terrible acting, but raises good awareness about abusive relationships. Sometimes we don't know someone's crazy until it's too late. I wish I had known the things this movie teaches before I had started dating. It's also important for parents to know how to handle the situation. Because it's true. If you push back on your child who is in an abusive relationship, they will only hide things from you and stay with the abuser.For younger teenagers, there are small parts you might want to skip. No significant nudity is shown, but a mom walks in on her daughter giving a random guy from her English class oral sex. She doesn't get away with it and learns, so some parents might not mind.

Elizabeth (Rebecca Williams) is a typical teenager who's found what's seems to be a great guy in her boyfriend Mark (Nick Thurston). The relationship starts to turn sour once Mark starts to be abusive and controlling. Reviving Ophelia is Lifetime movie trying to convey the dark sides and dangers of relationships.I am all for a film trying to show how important to be safe in relationships even if it's only a television film. I think it is important to expose this important issue and in the most serious manner which maybe could even save a life and the Lifetime channel would seem to be the perfect place for a TV film like this. The Lifetime channel seems to have a wide audience and they have made many films.So why then is Reviving Opehia so cheesy when it's dealing with a such touchy and important subject?Even though she is a victim of assault, Elizabeth is hard character to root for because she can get away from her abuser Mark and she is clearly something of a button-pusher. You obviously can't like Mark either because he is a guy beating up a woman and not taking responsibility for his actions. Keil (Carleigh Beverly) Elizabeth cousin, is the character in the middle who's supposed be trying to help Elizabeth get away from Mark but the two unlikable characters are in the way of her character realizing her full potential. Even Jane Kaczmarek as mother Marie Jones, previously known for good stuff like Malcolm in the Middle and Part of Five, falls short and her acting here is far from where it usually is. The cast does have some chemistry though everything is toned down due to this being a TV film. The plot really has only one subject and it really has little substance.Reviving Ophelia is so full of problems that it's main message that "that abuse is bad" gets very lost in the middle of it. After that, it is a bit laughable and you keep watching because you have nothing else to do. We watched this in my high school Relationships class as we spent a whole unit learning about abusive relationships. Frankly, just about whole class laughed at this movie and my buddy next to me cracked some sex jokes and commented about all the attractive actresses that appear in this film. It did make this bad TV film seem more bearable.

I HATED the way that Kelly and her mom were treated by Lizzie and her mom. It was obvious from the start that Lizzie thought she was better than her cousin and her mother thought she was better than Kelly's mom. Several references to this throughout the movie. And through it all, Kelly was still kind to Lizzie and her mother was still kind of Marie. Even when Marie said that she must be happy to learn that her daughter (Lizzie) is even more screwed up than Kelly, Kelly's mom didn't say anything. Sorry, but you don't treat family like that. The rivalry between the girls I can understand, but between their mothers? Too much for my taste.Also, the actor who played Mark wasn't the best actor.Other than that, I thought it was a good movie, an important one.