A&E | 2004 | 86 mins. | Not Rated
Plain Truth is a 2004 film originally made for and aired on the Lifetime television network. In the interest of fair disclosure, I should say I rarely watch anything on Lifetime, except the occasional episode of Army Wives, and even then I usually wait to receive the DVD set. Understand I have nothing against the channel. The truth is, I’ve watched very little commercial television over the past couple of years. However, one of my favorite shows on the air today is Law & Order Special Victims Unit starring Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay. To that end, I was interested in seeing Plain Truth, as it represented an opportunity to see Ms. Hargitay playing someone other than Det. Olivia Benson.
The teleplay by Matthew Tabak (Auggie Rose) was based on a best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult, and the movie was directed by Paul Shapiro. Shapiro’s work has been almost exclusively in TV (Pushing Daisies, 24, Las Vegas, Tru Calling, Roswell, The Client, The X Files), so this is a guy who knows his way around the medium. What’s produced here is fairly riveting television fare.
Mariska Hargitay stars as Ellie Harrison, a single, successful, big-city defense attorney. Beginning to question her choice of career, Ellie is set to take a long vacation in Italy. Instead, a doctor friend urges her to help her cousin. Ellie ends up taking the case of an eighteen-year-old Amish girl who is accused of murdering her newborn baby.
The girl, Katie Fitch (Alison Pill), claims that not only didn’t she kill the child, but it isn’t even hers. Further, she claims she’s never been pregnant despite that fact that hers and the baby’s blood match. Doctor’s also insist she recently gave birth to a baby.
Ellie plans to get her out of police custody on bail, and take her long-desired vacation before the case goes before the court. When bail is denied, Ellie suggests that a “guardian” be appointed. Since a “legal guardian” can’t be a relative, Ellie is assigned this responsibility. With that, Ellie packs up and joins her young charge in Amish country. Ensconced in the Fitch home, the big city lawyer is faced with a huge adjustment. She can’t call anyone on her cell phone, or use her laptop once the batteries have run low because there’s no electricity. It’s a twenty minute trip to the nearest town to use a pay phone.
Despite Katie’s obvious legal troubles, it’s an uphill battle for Ellie to convince the Fitch’s she has Katie’s best interests at heart. Sarah (Kate Trotter), Katie’s mother, is most gracious, while Jacob (Alec McClure,), the father, openly resents Ellie’s presence. However, Ellie has bigger problems to deal with when it appears Katie may be a compulsive liar with mental issues. Ellie discovers the girl going out at night into the fields to talk to her dead sister.
Ellie and Katie begin to bond when the attorney takes her to the city for a psychiatric evaluation. Because this is a Lifetime movie, Dr. “Coop” Cooper (Jonathan LaPaglia) is an ex-boyfriend of Ellie’s and they have some unfinished business in their past to work out. Thankfully, the film doesn’t lose focus on the central storyline and spends about fifteen minutes on this.
While no one would put Plain Truth in the same class as 1985’s theatrical film Witness, for a television movie there are a significant amount of twists and turns that are likely to keep viewers guessing. Most interestingly, the ending leaves things dangling; I’m not sure it gives you a clear cut answer to many of the questions raised throughout the story.
The video is presented as it was shot in a 1.33:1 screen ratio. The colors are deep and object delineation is quite good, thanks to a high bit rate transfer. There is a small degree of grain, however, that tends to give the picture a somewhat gritty appearance. Still, the picture quality looks good and has life.
The 2.0 Dolby Digital soundtrack is better than expected, and I never had to resort to subtitles. The DVD includes English and Spanish spoken languages; and English and Spanish subtitles.
There are no special features.
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