Ordinary Miracles (2005)

Kay Woodbury (Jaclyn Smith) is a no nonsense workaholic San Diego judge. Troubled foster kid Sally Powell (Lyndsy Fonseca) comes before her court. Her foster parents terminate foster care. With nowhere to go, Kay sends her to juvenile corrections facility. Kay's ex-husband David Woodbury (Corbin Bernsen) is getting remarried. She's estranged from her father over a case she presided over. Case worker Miranda (Sarah Aldrich) pleads for Sally. Kay decides to be her temporary guardian while she's on her yearly three weeks recess. Sally is having nightmares and Kay asks her neighbor psychiatrist Dr. Michael Katsu for help. Sally steals Kay's jewelry and plans to runaway with her boyfriend Pete Smalling to San Francisco. It's not enough and he tells her to steal more. Kay discovers the identity of Sally's father James Powell (C. Thomas Howell) and hires him for landscaping.This is a Hallmark movie. The story is pretty much lots of personal melodrama. The production is mostly TV movie level. The most compelling aspect in this is Jaclyn Smith. It's always nice to see this TV legend. She has aged very well. There's a younger Lyndsy Fonseca doing a good job as the moody troubled teen. This is basically what you expect from a Hallmark TV movie and nothing more than that.

Back when I was younger I knew a street kid who told me once if not a hundred times that all he ever wanted in life was a family. He and his sister were taken away as toddlers by the state who declared the parents unfit. He died at the age of 26 so the state did a remarkable job at raising him, he died of AIDS. I'd like to think that somewhere somehow that there was a father like C. Thomas Howell who grieved for his absence or a ghost mother like Sarah Aldrich who materialized at a critical moment in Lyndsy Fonseca's life. Most of all I'd like to think that judge like Jaclyn Smith came into his life as she did in Fonseca's life in Ordinary Miracles. That never happened though.Both Smith and Fonseca are having a lot of family issues. Smith is such a hardnosed judge that she nearly reported her old man who was a lawyer for asking an out of channels favor. But she takes a personal interest in Fonseca's situation and what happens is nothing less than your garden variety Ordinary Miracle.This is a nice well done film shot on location in San Diego with some sincere performances all around. Good Hallmark production.

The Conservatives must have had a field day in bashing this movie where a liberal judge takes home a foster girl who just about everyone has given up on.The story is the relationship that develops between both of these people, while the girl's miserable boyfriend encourages her to steal jewelry from the judge so that they can both flee and rid themselves of foster homes permanently.If this isn't enough, the judge, played admirably by Jaclyn Smith, finds the father, a widower, who couldn't cope following the tragic death of his wife when Sally was 3. The judge makes believe that she wants him services for landscaping before she tells him the truth.Even with this obvious liberal bias, this film was extremely well done. The performances are first rate,notably Jaclyn Smith and Lyn Fonseca as the troubled child she takes in.I guess that the judge saw the Spencer Tracy-Mickey Rooney 1938 classic-Boys Town. Remember, there is no such thing as a bad boy. Everyone has redeeming qualities.

Hallmark is known for showing excellent movies. This one in particular was very good. I would think that it's about family and finding a place where you belong. Sally is this beautiful and bright girl who hides behind dark makeup and dark clothes because of the disappointment of being rejected four times as a foster child. Jaclyn Smith plays the character, Kay, who is a Judge and takes Sally in and finds the courage to bring her into her life. She encounters the swift announcement of her ex-husband getting remarried and is dealing with a straining relationship with her father due to a request that could have jeopardized her career all the while trying to handle this troubled young girl who only longs to belong. The bond between them slowly grows and is challenged when Kay finally locates Sally's father, a landscaper, and employs him for a task in her home without revealing to Sally who he really is. Once she finds out, she runs away with her loser boyfriend where they plan to run off to San Francisco but things don't turn out the way it was planned and Sally finds herself, once again, in a flustered situation. The movie unfolds at a steady pace. It's a nice movie to sit down and watch without having to be disturbed by violence, blood and guts and other action-related, adrenaline-flowing motives of that sort. It's a really good family movie with a good story line and fine acting.