Lifetime
Lifetime knows it is impossible to resist a TV movie with the title Nobody Dumps My Daughter, and makes it even more irresistible by casting some big names in Ana Ortiz and Sheila E. And this ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ story is probably one of the most lurid subjects the network has produced … and that’s saying a lot.
Nobody Dumps My Daughter focuses on the Latino, very Catholic Ramirez family — Michael, Mary and Theresa — well off with Mary devoted to her daughter and her stature in the area. The family suffered a tragedy years ago when Mary and Michael’s son was killed in a car accident, so Mary is very over-protective of her high school age daughter. Mary (Ana Ortiz) is also addicted to having her fortune told by local psychic Anna (Sheila E.), and when Anna ‘sees’ a boy in Theresa’s future, Mary is overjoyed especially when Theresa (Jasmine Vega) comes home from school right after the reading and tells her mother she met a boy. Before the kids can even go on their first date, Mary insists the boy come to the house for dinner so she can give him the once-over. Jimmy (Aiden Howard) manages to pass the grilling with flying colors, appearing to meet all of Mary’s criteria for dating her daughter: good grades, a plan for the future, strong family ties, and a love of children (and his little joke in reaction to if he likes kids even gets a pass for its cleverness). As the relationship escalates, Mary is sure that Jimmy is ‘the one’ for Theresa and becomes a bit over-bearing to the point that Theresa and Jimmy sneak off to the family’s beach house on South Padre Island, under the guise that Theresa is going with her girlfriends from school. Mary can’t fathom why Jimmy would be okay with his girlfriend spending a weekend with her friends, but Theresa assures her he’s fine with it.
Of course, one thing leads to another at the beach house and Theresa and Jimmy ‘do the deed’ even though Theresa at first said she didn’t think she was ready and Jimmy said it was okay, but it was only seconds later that he was moving in on her (basically proving he’s the dog everyone around Theresa and Mary thinks he is). But after Jimmy decline to attend the birthday party for Theresa’s grandmother, opting to go to a party thrown by one of his friends instead, Mary is so offended that she leaves her party to track down Jimmy, finding him drunk and in bed with another girl. Seeing Jimmy’s true colors, Theresa breaks things off, and Jimmy doesn’t really put up a fight suggesting that he was probably feeling a bit smothered at the age of 17, and Theresa admits to her mother that Jimmy was her first. Mary thinks she means ‘first love’ until Theresa makes it clear that’s not what she meant, and that sets her mother off on a path of destruction. She wants Anna to provide her with a spell or potion to take care of Jimmy — she believes if the person who took her daughter’s virginity is dead, she gets her virtue back (to which Theresa replies, ‘It doesn’t work like that!’) — but when nothing works, not even a voodoo doll, Mary gets desperate and enlists Anna to find her some hitmen to deal with Jimmy once and for all. Will this mother’s wrath solve her daughter’s problems, or will it tear the family completely apart?
Lifetime
Nobody Dumps My Daughter is an unintentionally campy and wildly entertaining crime thriller thanks to a clever script by Richard Blaney and Gregory Small that balances the drama with the absurd. Director Stanley M. Brooks does a great job in telling the story while managing to keep everything firmly grounded in the period setting of 1992 — the kids have to talk on real landline telephones! — although Jimmy and Mary’s movie date to see Another Pair of Aces with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, a 1991 TV movie sequel to the 1990 TV movie Pair of Aces, is a bit head-scratching (I mean, if you bother to look on IMDb to see if it was a real movie like I did). But this really has the authentic feel of a TV movie from 1992 and I really appreciate the work that went into making this very period authentic.
What really sets this Lifetime movie apart from the others is the cast. We’ve seen some movies with big names that have been total duds (Held Hostage in My House) and others with relatively unknown actors succeed (Buried Alive and Survived). Here we have Ana Ortiz, best known for her roles on Ugly Betty, Devious Maids and Love, Victor, subtly chewing the scenery as Mary, showing us her inner pain over the loss of her son while slowly coming unglued because of her daughter’s situation. She manages to turn some her dialogue into high camp, and is always the center of attention whenever she’s on screen. If for no other reason, the movie is a must-see just for Ortiz’s performance. Then you have musician Sheila E. as psychic Anna, not quite an over-the-top Miss Cleo performance but she does some solid work. It’s just amazing to see her here. Jasmine Vega is outstanding as Theresa, and while her age is unknown she’s completely convincing as a junior in high school (Lifetime has had a habit of casting actors much obviously older than their teen characters). She makes us root for Theresa as she begins to fall in love, and we feel her pain as her relationship with Jimmy crashes and burns. But she never makes Theresa the victim, and her frustrations with her mother — who keeps the wounds of the break-up fresher than Jimmy does — is totally authentic. It’s a terrific performance. Aiden Howard also does a great job as Jimmy, another convincing high schooler, managing to walk a fine line between portraying Jimmy as a good boy and a boy with a reputation. He has a reputation, but the way Howard plays the role makes it seem like perhaps that reputation is just what people assume about him (even after another girl at school seems to be on more-than-friendly terms with him). Francisco Trujillo Avalos-Davidson also does a good job as Michael, trying to rein in Mary while keeping Theresa from shutting her mother out.
Lifetime really surprised with Nobody Dumps My Daughter, from the period authenticity to the great cast that keeps the film entertaining and watchable, injecting humor here and there to what is a truly dire situation for all involved. This is definitely one of the best movies the network has turned out recently.
Nobody Dumps My Daughter has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-PG.
Lifetime
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