Girl Missing

aka Forgotten

2015
Written by Philip Fracassi
Directed by Joel Soisson

Girl Missing is another Lifetime flick featuring dangerous family secrets and a woman in trouble. Is there an evil man? Of course! There is also murder and a mystery child, and even a bit of atmosphere. It suffers from having few enough characters that the obvious outcome stands out too easily, though the actors try to make up for it by giving great performances.

A young girl is found wandering the forest with no memories of where she came from. 15 years later, she’s turned into Francesca Eastwood and is known as Jane (as in Jane Doe, I’m guessing!), and is a struggling artist collection rejections from galleries and living with her childhood orphan friend, Finch. Things change when she gets a letter about a possible parent match.

Meets her “mom”, Sylvia Knowles, and both of them are all smiles and giggles over the objections of the case worker, Gwen, who points out the DNA test hasn’t even come back yet. No bother, Jane agrees to go visit Sylvia for the weekend, Sylvia convinced she is her missing daughter, Savannah.

It turns out Sylvia is loaded. As in billionaire loaded. And Jane/Savannah’s dad is dead from suicide, Sylvia having married the charming Carlo in the intervening years. If you sense some sort of twisted inheritance plot coming up, congratulations! Besides the obvious direction that turns, Jane occasionally spies a young girl running around the estate. The girl is played by the same actress that played young Jane, and we skirt across spooky right to psychological, as she’s the manifestation of Jane’s missing memories.