Lifetime
It has been a while since Lifetime dipped back into the ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ stories, but the network’s newest abduction thriller relates the true story of Martha Carelli, a harrowing incident detailed in a chapter of Ann Rule’s 2008 book, Smoke, Mirrors & Murder: And Other True Crimes, titled ‘The Painter’s Wife’. Well, the movie hits the bullet points of the story, and gets the names right, but almost the entire thing is a complete fabrication … but if you don’t do any research you can take it as gospel.
In the movie, Martha and John Carelli, and son Bennet, live an idyllic life somewhere in Georgia in an unknown year, although we can assume it’s probably the early 90s as no one has a cell phone. There is a report on the radio about a prison escape not far from the neighborhood, and a newspaper headline reports that two of the four inmate have been captured. John goes off to work, Bennet goes to play with his friend, and Martha goes to the garage to put something in a cabinet, and when she opens the door she is confronted by a young man who attacks her and quickly closes the garage door. Martha doesn’t know the man has been in her house for some time, sniffing her panties and watching her and John ‘do their taxes’ (if you know what I mean). He apparently was just planning to lay low and rob the family so he could make his getaway, but now Martha has complicated things. Tied to a chair, Martha tells the man that John is coming home at 5:30 and she doesn’t know when her son will be back, but Michael thinks she’s lying because he already knew John was working late every night this week. But Bennet and his friend Tim do come back to the house, and as they make their way downstairs, Martha yells at them to close their eyes tight, in an effort to protect them from seeing the man’s face, making them eyewitnesses and potential targets. The man takes the boys to a room and ties them up, then he forces Martha to cook him the steak she was going to cook for dinner. She feeds him, and he assures her that if she does anything funny, the boys will be killed by his accomplice who is in the room with them. Surprise, John does come home early, and when he sees the young man, holding a gun on him, the captor orders Martha to bind John’s hands and feet together with duct tape. Left alone, John is able to break the tape around his ankles and he makes it out of the house, standing in the middle of the street for some reason. He apparently made it across the street to a neighbor and from out of nowhere the police have arrived, a SWAT team hidden inside of a decoy power company van, but when some kids walk by and start throwing Snapper Poppers on the ground, the SWAT team thinks it’s gunshots and they emerge from the van despite no one giving the order to do so. John watches in horror, fearing this incompetence will get his wife and kid killed, but Bennet and Tim run from the house and John sees that the garage is empty. How did Martha and Michael make a getaway without anyone noticing from John’s vantage point directly across the street? Who knows. This also indicates that there was never anyone else in the house, but Martha still doesn’t know this.
Before leaving, Martha left a fingerprint of her blood on the corner of the phone display screen — again, why, we don’t know but perhaps just to let John know she’s been injured. While driving the kidnapper to his destination, she tries to formally introduce herself (this is where she learns his name is Michael Anderson) and he plays along … and then slaps her in the head again for trying to make a human connection with him. She’s already been beaten pretty badly so this only makes things worse. Michael knows that the cops will be looking for the car, so he makes her pull into a garage and he steals the plate from another car and makes Martha put it on her car, then he makes her get in the trunk and he drives off like a maniac, probably not the lowest profile thing to do. They make another stop and Michael needs to switch cars so he kidnaps another hostage, a man named Doug, and they go on their way to Atlanta. Doug finds it ironic that he quit his job as an EMT to work as a store clerk to get away from high stress situations, but his training also tells him that Martha is concussed and needs to go to a hospital. Michael refuses the request, and as they hit the highway he notices the gas gauge is nearly on E so they have to stop to fuel up. While Martha is at the snack machine, she hears a woman calling her name and it’s an old sorority sister, Nancy, whom she has not seen for some time (how Nancy recognized Martha from the back is also never explained, especially so far from her home). As Nancy approaches, Martha warns her off, telling her she is highly contagious with RSV so Nancy backs off, but Martha tells her to give her a call sometime so they can catch up, she’s at the same number. At this point, Martha is trying to convince Michael that he does not need two hostages, and he agrees so he might as well just kill Doug. Or Martha. But Doug warns him that Martha is in serious need of medical attention and absolutely should not be driving. Michael heeds his advice, about the driving, and makes them switch seats so they can continue to Atlanta. Back at the house, the phone rings and it’s Nancy, telling John and the police that she just saw Martha (more questions here as to how Nancy knew Martha was in trouble; was Michael correct in assuming Martha was giving Nancy some sort of signal?). Now the police know that Michael is likely on his way to another accomplice in Atlanta, so they can begin to mobilize for his arrival. Michael is fixated on Martha and wants to know more about her, especially when he sees a sign for the college she wants Bennet to attend, her own alma mater, so he makes Doug stop at the college so they can get out and tour the grounds while Martha tells him about her time there. Except the effects of the concussion are worsening, causing Martha to vomit in front of some students (Michael blaming it on partying too hard) and they get back to the car. Doug is very concerned but Martha is hanging on. After hearing Martha talk about Atlanta, it seems there is still a long way to the destination so the three pull into a motel parking lot. Michael wants Martha to get them a room, but Doug steps up because Martha’s condition (and the obvious trauma to her face) would be a red flag to the desk clerk. Doug goes in while the others wait outside, and calmly explains to the clerk his situation but from Michael’s vantage point it just seemed like a regular transaction. When they get to the room, Michael decides if he’s going to flee by train (his original plan was by plane, but Doug and Martha explained to him that there was no way he’d just be able to walk into an airport and throw cash at a ticketing agent and get a ticket without ID) he should have some clean clothes, so he orders Martha to wash his shirt in the sink. Which she does and gets a nose bleed while doing it. He then ties up both Doug and Martha, and Martha continues to try to reason with Michael (while Doug has a complete emotional meltdown, believing Michael is going to kill them both), turning on her best motherly concern about Michael and his future, playing on the fact that he grew up in the foster care system and can’t even remember his mother, confused at times if his memories of her are real or dreams, but whatever Martha is doing is really getting to him emotionally. Michael, however, feels it’s too quiet outside and fears the police are there, but there is no chatter on the police radio he’s been checking to indicate they are. But they are there, quietly sneaking up the stairs to the second floor, and before they can make their presence known, Martha has completely melted Michael’s cold heart and he makes an excuse to leave the room to get some food from the snack machine, seeming to know that once he walks out that door, he will be captured. But will he go peacefully or in a blaze of glory, and will either Martha or Doug be collateral damage?
Lifetime
Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story, taken as purely a form of entertainment, is quite gripping with many nerve-wracking, edge-of-your-seat moments. If you don’t know all the facts then it all works well, but in doing research you learn that this incident happened in 1978, so why make it seem like it’s the 90s? (Period pieces cost money.) The Carellis also have five children, three of whom are grown and have moved out so exactly how old was Martha, because there is no way the Martha in the movie has three children older than 18 years. John’s profession is also apparently quite different, a house painter in real life, but with some big office job in the movie that pays well enough for their large home, allowing Martha to be a stay-at-home mom. When Martha asks Michael why he chose her home, he said it was because the garage door was open. In real life, Martha was concerned about the prison escape and made sure all of her doors and windows were locked, but one of the two boys still at home accidentally left the basement door ajar and that is how he got in. It wasn’t until two days later when Martha went to do laundry that she discovered Michael. Michael did restrain the two boys, as well as John and their other son, who had also come to the basement. Upon leaving the house, Michael drove and had Martha in the trunk, instead of her driving and him hunkered down in the back seat until they reached the open highway. When he captured Doug, he also took one of Doug’s co-workers, so there were four people in the car at that point. Michael did finally confess to Martha that the man she believed was with her kids had been captured by the police long ago, and was never in her house. At the end, it seems Michael did want to slip out of the room to get some food, but it wasn’t the act of self-sacrifice as portrayed in the movie. Also, all of this happened in Washington state, with Michael heading to Seattle, not Atlanta. It’s very interesting the changes writers Conor Allyn and Benjamin Anderson chose, or had, to make in order to bring this story to the screen. They have created moments of real tension, many times keeping us concerned about Doug’s fate (we assume since this is Martha’s story that she will survive), and wondering if Michael will be killed by the police. But a lot of the movie is also just talking, either Michael telling his life story or Martha speaking in slow, measured, controlled tones to soothe Michael so he doesn’t lose him temper and kill them. If you’re expecting a lot of action and high speed chases, this is not the movie you’re looking for. It’s still one that will hold your attention otherwise. Director Traci Hays manages to keep even the talkier parts of the movie interesting, employing a lot of extreme close-ups of the actors, maintaining a sense of claustrophobia when they are all in the car with nowhere to run, able to open things up a bit at the various stops they make.
Hays also gets some great performances from the three main actors. Stana Katic is terrific as Martha. In her home life, she obviously adores her son and is crazy in love with her husband. Considering she had a career in accounting, she comes off more as a therapist in how she can speak to Michael in her calm tones, and as he reveals more of his past, she can go into mom mode and try to be a mother figure to him, to help guide him into doing the right thing. In this version of the story, it was Martha who saved the day, and Katic handles that role to perfection. Tyler Tomás Perez is also great as Michael, always keeping you on edge, never knowing which way his personality is going to swing, like in the scene when Martha tries to formally introduce herself and he plays along and then brutally smacks her in the head. He’s already shown a violent streak at the house, but on the road with Martha and Doug, he always seems like a powder keg ready to explode. Perez also plays Michael like he is the brains of the operation. He takes credit for the breakout and convincing three grown men, who he didn’t need, to help him so his confidence is a little over-inflated. He sometimes seems to realize that Martha is playing on his sympathies or on his memories of his mother, but he eventually does get played by her. But at the end, the look of resolution on his face as he makes his decision to step out into what could be a very dangerous situation almost makes you feel bad for Michael, seeing him as the damaged little boy he’s always been. Doug and Martha made it quite clear to him that he has no idea how things work in the real world, so his best option was to give up and Perez plays it beautifully. Michael Shenefelt has a tough role in Doug because the man is a basket case, the complete opposite of Martha even though they are both in the same situation. But he does pull it together most of the time, perhaps with Martha’s calming words, to keep them all safe, and his moment with the motel clerk is done very well. Dove Meir doesn’t have a lot to do as John, but he does make it obvious that John and Martha are totally in love, and he is very cooperative with the police (instead of behaving in the typical ‘you’re not doing anything, I’ll take matters into my own hands’ fashion — they could have really spiced up the story and had John go off in pursuit … but he’d really have no way of knowing where they were going).
As it stands as simply a piece of entertainment based on a true story, Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story will keep you glued to the screen, with excellent performances to drive the story along.
Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story | Official Trailer
Lifetime