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A Mother's Secret

Original title: Dying for a Daughter
  • TV Movie
  • 2020
  • TV-14
  • 1h 30m
IMDb RATING
4.9/10
186
YOUR RATING
A Mother's Secret (2020)
Watch Trailer
Play trailer1:51
1 Video
5 Photos
DramaThriller

After a terrifying car accident leaves her adolescent daughter severely injured, Samantha hires a live-in nurse who may have ulterior motives for helping.After a terrifying car accident leaves her adolescent daughter severely injured, Samantha hires a live-in nurse who may have ulterior motives for helping.After a terrifying car accident leaves her adolescent daughter severely injured, Samantha hires a live-in nurse who may have ulterior motives for helping.

  • Director
    • Fred Olen Ray
  • Writers
    • Fred Olen Ray
    • Jeffrey Schenck
    • Peter Sullivan
  • Stars
    • Brittany Underwood
    • Melanie Nelson
    • Brandon Ray Olive
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    4.9/10
    186
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Fred Olen Ray
    • Writers
      • Fred Olen Ray
      • Jeffrey Schenck
      • Peter Sullivan
    • Stars
      • Brittany Underwood
      • Melanie Nelson
      • Brandon Ray Olive
    • 13User reviews
    • 3Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 1:51
    Trailer

    Photos4

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    Top cast13

    Edit
    Brittany Underwood
    Brittany Underwood
    • Margaret
    Melanie Nelson
    Melanie Nelson
    • Sam
    Brandon Ray Olive
    Brandon Ray Olive
    • Tom
    Scarlett Roselynn
    Scarlett Roselynn
    • Cassie
    Karina Gale
    Karina Gale
    • Karen
    • (as Karina Segura)
    James Jamison
    • Dr. Phillips
    Malinda Money
    • Nurse Williams
    Charan Prabhakar
    • Medic Blake
    Yolanda Stange
    Yolanda Stange
    • Detective Sullivan
    Jill Adler
    Jill Adler
    • Mrs. Bateman
    Richard Benedict
    • Jimmy
    David Stanley
    • Officer Jacobs
    Jeff Perkins Hyde
    Jeff Perkins Hyde
    • Jimmy
    • Director
      • Fred Olen Ray
    • Writers
      • Fred Olen Ray
      • Jeffrey Schenck
      • Peter Sullivan
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews13

    4.9186
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    10

    Featured reviews

    6Top_Dawg_Critic

    Your typical Lifetime movie

    It's basically watching a soap opera with a start and end to one entire "dramatic" story.

    The overbearing and constant score was very annoying. Zero music was needed in more than half of the entire scores runtime.

    The acting for the most part was sub par - unconvincing and/or over exaggerated, but I'm sure that's mostly well-seasoned TV writer and director Fred Olen Ray's failure to direct his scenes and cast properly.

    His directing in this one felt very amateurish, that the entire film seemed like an independent low budget amateur filmmaker's production. It felt very phony and unconvincing. The story has been done many times before, and much better, so not sure why we needed a "soap opera" version, that was predictable start to end.

    Pacing and runtime were decent. If you have nothing better to watch, I guess this one is OK. It's a generous 6/10 from me
    1momsipadonly

    Couldn't get any worse

    Simply the worst. Horrible acting start to finish if I wasn't so Covid trapped and bored would never have bothered to finish watching.
    haroot_azarian

    Typical third grader script

    So I quite like Underwood, but she is just terrible at playing psycho villians, her facial expressions are just God aweful! Also there were many scenes where smimey Tom deserved a scillet to the upside of his head! If I had been Sam I would have thrown him out a long time ago!
    8imdb-25288

    Anyone else was rooting for the blonde?

    I surfed onto this in progress. The first thing that struck me was how the blonde wasn't using that annoying voice fry I'd expected from her. That took me aback, so I paused to watch a scene then surfed out, only to come right back after a few min. I must say the prettier Shakira look-alike gave a strong performance.

    Now, I read the other reviews. People don't seem to have watched Lifetime movies. You don't rate it like a real movie but you rate it compared to the rest of crap this channel puts out. And this was not bad. I found the platinum woman compelling to watch. (Brittany Underwood... is she supposed to be famous? The name rings a bell but I couldn't place her, even after going down her filmography and PS: this isn't listed there!)

    I liked when she killed the woman in the car, she barely exerted herself. (I am guessing that was direction?) Sometimes she looked younger than her (32?) age and sometimes she looked 42, like when she went berserk killing the welfare check woman.

    What else can I say? It's a Lifetime movie, you don't take them serious. It was well lit. Oh and the mother was so annoying, from the get-go you had to root for the bad girl. Or am I the only 1? Why can't dumb movie channels like Lifetime give us what we want already? Imagine the precedent this could have set: she gets away with all the murders at the end! Come on, we all wanted that! i mean come on: the Hays Code is long over, so act like it! I mean what is this, the ABC Family channel resurrected and crossed with Hallmark? Have some guts, Lifetime and help us murder-and-get-away-with it via proxy. None of us gonna murder anyone, all of us have a couple dozen peeps on our hit list. (Particularly now!) Give us what we want or else: we change channels. Lifetime totally lost an opportunity to make headlines the next day with the social media being all like "WTF?" and other channels going copycat for the (diluted) same effect. Oh, well!

    For the bad part: we aren't told at the end if she's really the girl's mother. I say yes. Also worse: the casting of the girl. Nothing against the girl, per se, but against the terrible casting director and choice: this girl was too old and too precocious. It would have made for a more interesting story if the girl had the (sorely needed) "angelical" quality. Think "Gracie" from The Nanny. The kid didn't need to be a 6 year old, but she definitely needed more vulnerability factor, to put the viewer a bit more on edge (for those that know how to "get into a movie" and pretend it's real). Also she wasn't that experienced an actress for the part, such as at the Byrd Cafe when she says "really?" after Blondie told her the story of what happened to her baby daughter. There was nothing behind that word, substance-wise, and the Gracie actress had her character down pat and acting chops in droves.

    All in all, it's probably a 7/10 for LifeTime level of non-movies, this is pretty good so I'm bumping it to an 8/10, for Blondie's performance only. Does she moonlight as Shakira's double in her spare time? She's so much prettier, and her platinum-ish hair gave her creepy vibes to perfection for her character. Hope to see her in something else soon.
    5Chartreuse1

    Not a complete waste of time, however.......

    Refreshing change to see star Brittany Underwood playing the baddie. Unfortunately, even her acting chops can't rescue this movie from terrible acting and a bad script. The best part was the ending scene and even that was overacted. Keep on trying, Lifetime! One of these days, you'll get it right!

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      All entries contain spoilers
    • Goofs
      In the next to last scene, Rebecca/Margaret gives Sam a beating, including several blows to the face. In the last scene, presumably some time later, there's barely a mark on her face, light bruising on her right cheek. At the least, she should have black and blue marks at her eyes and possibly bleeding, a broken nose.

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • November 7, 2020 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Official Site
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Dying for a Daughter
    • Production company
      • Hybrid
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 30 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Stereo
    • Aspect ratio
      • 16:9 HD

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