Amber's Story (2006)

How sad is this?

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I'm not here to nitpick about accents. Elizabeth Rohm gives a wonderful, emotional performance of a brokenhearted, angry mother. All of the actors are great, but Rohm is the one who has to carry the film, and she does so successfully. The second half of the film, which intercuts from future to past, displays how the "Amber Alert" system operates today. It was a very creepy person this working mom chose to watch her daughter. It was riveting, very horrifying at times, and of course, a fitting tribute to a little girl who was stolen from her family by an amoral coward.I hope the coward is caught one day. If he did it to one child, he's done it to another.

Amber's story was not for me about a child murderer who was never caught, it was about modern America's attitude to raising children where the mum has to work, while leaving her child to be looked after by someone else.In which case this "someone else" was a relatively disturbed old man who could see how the little girl he was asked to look after while his mum worked, was not being cared for properly by her own mother.This true story demonstrated the mum's irresponsibility toward her own little girl, because mum needed to work to pay the bills.How we in the western world solve this problem of latch key children is another issue.Because in the ideal, young children need two mature stable parents to raise them.Young children should never be left with strangers, no matter how friendly they might be.

Amber's Mom: the worst acting I've ever seen. and I patronize community theater. I've lived all over the south including Texas. Unbelievable performance and less believable accents. Creepy Abductor was the best actor and I'm surprised he agreed to be in this thing. Too bad because the story deserved to be told well. Instead, it was a joke. Is this the norm for lifetime movies? I didn't think so, but it's been a long time since I watched such cheesy television. I only watched it because of the connection to real life legislation. And, I'm sure if there was such blatant disregard for the geography (Canada=Texas for gosh sakes?) there was probably such license taken with other historicity. The only thing I came away believing is that there is actually a real Amber Alert--but not because of the movie. Could that woman have actually been so stupid as to allow that guy to babysit that child? There's way more to THAT story.

Some of you think that the acting was awful, you insult Elisabeth Rohm, you insult everyone else. I for one have to say, no it wasn't the best show, but you know, the girl who played Amber had a pretty good accent, and I found she was the one who made it worth watching frankly, disagree if you wish but this is my opinion and I think that everyone is entitled to have one. I have to disagree with the things said about the little girls... the actresses who played Amber and Nichole in this film were 12 and 11 when they shot this, so to say that they did well for their age is almost to imply they are six or seven. I met the girl who plays Amber and she said that she was like 5'1 when she shot it,( I'm a friend of the family) I don't think it mattered much because isn't Elisabeth like 5'9 or something? Anywho... the writing wasn't all that bad but,still it was obviously a low budget Lifetime project. That's my opinion :) bye