'The Memory Keeper's Daughter'
TELEVISION REVIEW
"The Memory Keeper's Daughter," which premieres tonight on Lifetime, is one of those movies that should be better than it is, the kind of show best watched while doing something else -- the ironing, perhaps, or some light weightlifting.
The work is adapted from Kim Edwards' tear-jerking bestseller of the same name with a cast that includes the brilliant (Emily Watson), the beautiful (Gretchen Mol) and the ever-dependable (Dermot Mulroney), but it suffers from too much of a muchness -- a surfeit of drama that marches dutifully across the screen as if determined to meet an emotional assault deadline rather than actually move the viewer. Yes, tears will be shed, moments of truth and beauty illuminated (I did mention that Emily Watson stars, right?) but the title notwithstanding, nothing that happens here remains in your memory very long.
From the moment Nora Henry (Mol) goes into labor on a dark and snowy night in 1964, you know things will not go well, and they don't. The doctor has an accident on the way to the clinic and so Nora's husband, David (Mulroney), also a doctor, must deliver his own child. Or rather children, as the stunningly quick birth of a perfect baby boy is followed by the surprising birth of a twin girl, who obviously suffers from Down syndrome.
Having endured the heartache of watching a beloved sister die from a birth defect, David instantly decides to spare his anesthetized wife the grief of loving a child he assumes will not live very long. He hands the baby over to Caroline (Watson), his nurse, and directs her to a local institution. Out into the snow she goes, but the institution is snake-pit horrible.
So spurred by compassion and a secret crush on David, Caroline chooses to take baby Phoebe and raise her on her own. Stopping at a market for milk and diapers, she runs out of gas and, alone in the snow with this newborn, is rescued by a friendly trucker who instantly falls in love with her. Back in the clinic, David tearfully tells Nora she had twins but the girl died.
All of this and more, including strange black-and-white flashbacks to David's apparent Appalachian childhood, occur within the first five minutes of the movie. It does. I swear. And that should tell you something about its pacing problem.
