Lifetime Review: 'My Little Girl Is Gone'

For designer Stephanie Esker (Sarah Lind), her life is quickly coming together. In addition to her business taking off, she is engaged to be married to money manager Jameson Seaverson (Robb Derringer). While Stephanie is still contending with the presence of her ex-husband Henry (Philip Boyd), who still wants Stephanie back, Stephanie is looking forward to starting a wonderful new life for herself and her 11-year-old daughter Caitlin (Dylan Raine Woods).

But then, Stephanie receives a distressing anonymous phone call from someone threatening to harm Caitlin if she goes through with marrying Jameson. While the call is initially dismissed as a disturbed prank by Jameson, it soon turns out to be a real-life nightmare when Caitlin disappears, with her kidnapper informing Stephanie of their only demand: that she divorce Jameson. With the police slow to find any evidence, the desperate Stephanie begins looking into her daughter's abduction herself. In the process, Stephanie begins to realize that Caitlin's disappearance is not what it initially appeared to be—and that a greater danger is lurking in plain sight.

The setup for My Little Girl Is Gone (originally titled the zestier Eve of Abduction) is a familiar Lifetime formula with a few notable tweaks. With the forewarning Stephanie gets from Caitlin's eventual kidnapper, the viewer is allowed to know early on that the young girl's abduction won't be a traditional one. There's a solid handful of suspects and, more importantly, there's the question regarding the kidnapper's motivation: are they simply delusional, or are they right to be trying to scare Stephanie away from Jameson? While the ultimate solution to the mystery is far from surprising, especially to Lifetime regulars, the deviation on the "Lifetime Kidnapping" formula is a solid one.

WARNING: Spoilers Below

The solution to the overall mystery, however, is tied into many of the problems that detract from My Little Girl Is Gone. As most seasoned Lifetime viewers will deduce ahead of time, Jameson is in fact hiding a secret, that being that he killed his first wife for her life insurance and is planning to do the same to Stephanie now that her career has taken off. The revelation that his son Shane kidnapped Caitlin in an effort to scare Stephanie away from his murderous father is a solid twist, and one that opens up an understated tragic subtext to Shane's character.

But on the downside, this revelation is what leads both Stephanie and Jameson's character into frustrating back-and-forths. Stephanie gets it the worst, as even though she had become suspicious of Jameson before Shane's reveal as Caitlin's "kidnapper," the third act has her shifting between maintaining that suspicion and abruptly disbelieving Shane. The abrupt change causes Stephanie to go from a solid protagonist to a frustratingly naive and uneven one, which might make it hard for some viewers to care when she finds herself at Jameson's mercy in the film's climax.

Jameson, meanwhile, has his uneven characterization take hold after his villainous reveal. His bare-bones greed motivation is given some flavor when he reveals he resented Stephanie's career success and the prospect of becoming a "house husband," with this and other moments painting Jameson as a self-centered and vaguely misogynistic sociopath. But at the very last moment, the film drops the ball by having Jameson exit the movie on meek apologies, seemingly backtracking on his previous developments as a remorselessly selfish monster. While it's not the worst characterization blunder I've seen on Lifetime (I did just review a film with a worse case of that), it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Spoilers Over

My Little Girl Is Gone has a strong cast behind it, with Sarah Lind and Robb Derringer giving strong performances that make up for the fumbles detailed in the Spoiler section. Chrishell Hartley does well as the warm and supportive Lila, and Betsy Randle brings charm to her minor role as Stephanie's mother Doreen. Philip Boyd is a standout as he brings likability and charm to a character who, on paper, sounds like he would be an unlikable ex-boyfriend trope, sharing a natural chemistry with Lind as Henry and Stephanie put aside their differences to rescue their daughter. As for the younger characters, Braeden Carl brings a vulnerability to Jameson's rebellious son Shane, Dylan Raine Woods is sweet in a non overly-cutesy or annoying way, and C.J. Valleroy brings a hint of comedy to the proceedings as Shane's awkward friend Eli.

While the characterization missteps and less-than-satisfying mystery conclusion definitely detract from this film, My Little Girl Is Gone remains a moderately enjoyable film thanks to the plot's deviation from the traditional Lifetime-ian format and the solid cast that brings energy to their characters and (in some cases) do what they can to work through their characters' flawed developments. It doesn't rank up with the greats in Lifetime's film catalog and is sure to leave some viewers disappointed, but for what it gets right, My Little Girl Is Gone is worth checking out if you have a few hours to kill.

Score: 6 out of 10 robotic competitions.