Long Lost Son (2006)

Sick Product of a Sick System

One of my all time favorites.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Not a very good movie, but Lifetime movies are generally like Harlequin romance novels. The basic premise is a woman's 4 year old son and estranged husband disappear on a boat trip during a storm. 14 years later, she suspects her son is still alive and looks for him. Honestly, I have to say she got what she deserved. She is going through a divorce with her very nice spouse, but holds a lot of resentment because it did not work out and "we are just different people" Her husband gets to see his son one weekend a month. What is that all about? The courts have a standard 2 weekend a month for non custodial parents, but because the divorce is not final and they are going through negotiations (and she knows how to work the system because she went to law school) the mother can dictate whatever she wants. She seems clearly upset when the father comes to pick his son up for visitation. When he tries to rationalize with her to work out a good parenting schedule and not use the lawyers, she is smug and refuses. He points out how she got the house and child support, while he was the one who put her through law school. Unfortunately, the system is lousy for fathers and this movie seems to show a fantasy that many men wish they could pull off. Fake their own death, take their kids with them and live in the Caribbean, ahhh if it were only that easy.

We don't see very many TV movies anymore, because most evenings the DVD player is spinning a recent release. But we were attracted to this one. It involves a man and woman whose marriage has gone stale, they are going through a divorce that the husband doesn't want, and there is a 4 year old son in the middle.Gabrielle Anwar is the mother, Kristen Sheppard. She seems to have lost her love for her husband, who had put her through law school. It is 1992 and now she is enlisting the help of her legal friends to put together the divorce petition, and her husband is afraid he is being locked out of their son's life. Craig Sheffer is the husband and father, Quinn Halloran. A former Navy man, he loves the water and sailing, and their young son Mark appears to like it as well. As the movie begins he only has visitation rights one weekend a month. On one visitation, Quinn takes Mark out on the boat even though inclement weather and winds are forecast. To make a short statement, the boat ends up overturned, and the searchers find no trace of the dad or the son. Mom is broken up, and the movie switches to 14 years later, 2006, and she is re-married and apparently happy. However, some friends just came back from a vacation trip to a small island near South America and their home video shows a "Captain John" and his 18 year old son in charge of the boat they chartered, and Kristen recognizes her husband in the video, and suspects that the young man is her son, thought to be dead for 14 years.So, most of the movie is to see if Kristen can track down her former husband and her son and establish the relationship she never was able to.Chace Crawford, a good-looking young man from Texas, is the grown son, Matthew Williams / Mark Halloran. I found myself sympathizing with the father, Quinn. He apparently did a great job of raising the boy, and only spoke admiringly of his mom Kristen, who he was told died in a house fire. I know how hard it is when divorce splits up a family and, even though what Quinn did was legally wrong, I did not find it as "wrong" as Kristen's attempts to lock him out of their son's life.SPOILERS: Kristen did catch up with them, and had a nice day boating and visiting with her son, while Quinn was elsewhere. But when he found out Kristen was there, Quinn and Mark met off on another small island as a hurricane was threatening. Kristen and Mark escaped with the help of a rescue helicopter, but Quinn took the small boat away. It ended with him stranded on nothing more than an rocky outcropping, and we don't know how much longer he will survive. But at least he had 18 years with his son, and he doesn't have to endure a prison sentence.

Gabrielle Anwar is Karen, a woman who believes her son and husband to be dead for the past 14 years - until she sees a young man and her husband in a vacation video. "The Long Lost Son" is about a woman who will not be stopped from going to the resort location and tracking down her child.This film was a real tour de force for Anwar, who gives a beautiful performance as the mother. The scene where she hears on the answering machine that the search at sea for her husband and child will have to be abandoned is amazing. So upset that she is unable to walk, she doubles over and leans on furniture to get across the room, where she completely collapses. All of her physical mannerisms and emotions rang true throughout.In order to give the character more obstacles, however, the writer added a plot hole - Karen buys her ticket for this island, but she has no passport. The travel agent suggests that she bring her birth certificate and driver's license. Uh, this is 2006. She brings a birth certificate that's not even an official copy. Anyone who has ever traveled to a foreign country knows that if you have a ticket, you can be issued a passport immediately. Naturally she runs into trouble when she arrives and her story about her husband is not believed as he is well-liked on the island and a friend of the police chief's.I had one other problem with this film, and that is, with Karen's son missing for 14 years, how could she have recognized him so readily? In real life, when the police thought they had found Eton Patz some years after he was kidnapped, the parents broke down when the saw the recent photo because they weren't sure that was their son. And look at Princess Anastasia. It's obviously not so easy. In this case, I bought it because I went with the mystical connection between mother and child - but really, if she had seen her husband on the video first, being suspicious about the young man would have made more sense.What makes this film above average is Anwar's performance and seeing a new actor, Chace Crawford, who plays Matthew/Mark, the son. He brought a naturalness and warmth to his role - and it doesn't hurt that he's a major hunk. You'll be seeing a lot of him.

This movie was so touching to me. Especially as a mother of two myself I can really empathize with Gabrielle Anwar's character in this movie. Whoever chose the cast for this movie did an excellent job of choosing Chace Crawford to play her grown son. He is very handsome. I looked this movie up online to see what this guys name was. I swear I thought he was my daycare provider's son. They could literally be twins! This young man Chace Crawford brought a whole lot of feeling and emotion to this movie. I don't think the movie would've been this great if they didn't cast him in it. I hope to see this young man in more movies very soon!