Lifetime
Lifetime’s latest ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ story is truly ripped from the headlines of the mid-to-late 1990s, recounting the harrowing ordeal of Laura Cowan. The movie follows Cowan’s story pretty faithfully and benefits from having Cowan involved in the production (she even makes a cameo appearance in a scene at the end of the movie).
Girl in the Garage: The Laura Cowan Story stars Paige Hurd as Cowan, a young woman who decided the frigid climes of Cleveland, Ohio was not for her so she packed up and moves to California, against the wishes of her mother. Arriving in Santa Monica in 1985 and attempting to establish herself, she soon met a man, Shabazz, preaching in a parking lot, catching his eye. He followed her to his car and introduced himself, and the two exchanged numbers with Laura promising to come to an event at the park he had coming up as long as he agreed to stop pushing it on her. It wasn’t long before the two were dating and they married in 1991, producing two children, Ahmed and Maryam. Shabazz had a dream of opening a bookstore cafe to share his culture and faith, and life was good until Shabazz was arrested for the trafficking of illegal firearms. He received a five year sentence in federal prison.
Unable to keep their business operating, Laura met a man named Musa Muhammed, who offered to help her pack up the store and offered her and her children a room in his home with his family until she could get back on her feet. Laura accepted but she began to sense something was off. Muhammed’s children were extremely quiet and seemed to live in fear of their father, as did his wife Marva. While Laura tried to maintain her own family life within his house, she felt the wrath of Muhammed when she tried to attend to his children, including playing outdoors with them or offering them some of her own family’s food because they said they were hungry. Muhammed began to get physically abusive with Laura, telling her he was now her husband, leading to raping her several times, and getting her pregnant. After needing to be rushed to the hospital when she unexpectedly went into labor, Muhammed forced Laura and her two children to live in his garage, taking the new baby away from her. Laura and her kids were held captive in the garage for six months while the abuse continued, leaving them often without food, light or a toilet. Fearing she would not make it out alive, Laura began documenting their captivity on paper and a cassette player she found in the garage, showing her children all of the hiding places in case something happened to her. With a new baby in the household, though, Muhammed needed Laura to apply for more benefits, and when the food stamps were available, she had to be the one to pick them up giving her a rare chance to get out of the house, and hopefully pass a note to the person at the counter pleading for help. Luckily Muhammed was distracted by a man he knew and Laura was able to quickly pass her note to the woman behind the counter who could sense something was very wrong. She took the note, acted like everything was fine, and gave Laura a nod that she would get help. This act of bravery on Laura’s part and the empathy of the woman who took the note probably saved not only the lives of Laura and her children, but of another woman Muhammed had locked in the adjoining garage.
Lifetime
Girl in the Garage: The Laura Cowan Story is a harrowing story and it’s certainly not for everyone, so be warned that it could be very triggering to anyone who may find themselves in an abusive relationship. It’s also an important story because it depicts Laura as a survivor, not a victim. Even in the darkest moments of her life, she manages to find the resilience to keep her wits about her and do what needs to be done to save herself and her children from their terrifying situation. One thing the movie never addresses is the question of was anyone else not wondering where Laura and her kids were? Did her mother not try to contact her and wonder why Laura never responded? Did she not have any friends who questioned her disappearance? Was the school Ahmed attended not concerned that the boy vanished? Did Shabazz not try to find out why his wife was not accepting any of his calls? Many questions are posed but the answers don’t even seem to be forthcoming through online research. Still, the focus of the story is Laura and her attempts to save herself and her kids, and on that point the movie is gripping.
Paige Hurd does an excellent job of portraying Laura, showing her full of life as she arrives in California, showing her love of her children and concern for the other children, showing her survival spirit in the face of the worst adversity she could have ever imagined. The makeup team also does a good job of showing how worn out Laura was becoming after being locked in the garage, and Hurd’s performance sells it all to perfection. Stephen Bishop is mesmerizing at first as Muhammed. He seems like a decent guy when he offers to help Laura, but he quickly becomes a bit of a religious fanatic once she moves in, revealing his true colors, almost behaving like a cult leader, and becoming absolutely terrifying the more violent and threatening he becomes during Laura’s time with him and his family (the movie doesn’t make clear that Laura was with him for four years, while locked in the garage for the last six months). It is a truly scary performance. The child actors all do good jobs of being into forced obedience, and Maresha Robinson seems to be playing the dutiful wife to Muhammed, but you can always see just a bit of fear and terror behind her eyes. Very good work from the entire cast.
Avery O. Williams has crafted a story that remains faithful to Cowan’s own story, right down to the bittersweet conclusion that does give a little heartbreak to her story. Director Manu Boyer guides his cast with skill, keeping the situation bleak and oppressive but always giving us a glimmer of hope for the Cowans. It’s certainly not the most joyful film you’ll see this year, but it is gripping and powerful, and perhaps in the end it can also give people hope who may find themselves in a similar situation.
Girl in the Garage: The Laura Cowan Story has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
Official Trailer | Girl in the Garage: The Laura Cowan Story
Lifetime