My Daughter's Secret (2007 TV Movie) User Reviews

Stupid at 17

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 16 April 2014]

After applying glossy color to her full lips, 17-year-old high school student Nina Dobrev (as Justine Douglas) meets her 21-year-old blond boyfriend Steve Byers (as Brent) and his wavy-haired brother James Gilbert (as Reggie) for a weird date. The two young men work as automobile mechanics. They rob the jewelry store where Ms. Dobrev's mother Jennifer Grant (as Denise) works as a manager. For some reason, Dobrev is immediately employed as the getaway car lookout, although she has just learned about the crime and acts like a flight risk. Turns out, she can be trusted to go along with the plan...

After the robbery, Ms. Grant frets about daughter Dobrev's increasing strange behavior. Grant is the real-life daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon. She should worry, because this TV Movie is incredibly dumb. Even worse is the level of responsibility the story allows the daughter to take for her participation in the crime. For what it's worth, Mr. Gilbert does well with his sleazy character and Catherine Mary Stewart is always an attractive police detective.

*** My Daughter's Secret (10/7/07) Douglas Jackson ~ Nina Dobrev, Jennifer Grant, Steve Byers, James Gilbert

Watch if you have a little time to waste

[cflr · 3/10 · 23 December 2007]

For those of you familiar with the beautiful city of Ottawa, you will at least get to see some recognizable sites in this film. That is the highlight of this film for me as it was entirely predictable with mediocre acting. The character of the daughter is just downright irritating and annoying and viewers might just want to reach through their television screens and throttle her because of her stupidity. The only other redeeming quality of this film are the cameos by those outstanding Canadian actors, Sophie Gendron and Benz Antoine. As I have to add another two lines before this gets posted, I must say that I am probably being generous by giving this film 3 out of 10.

It's not only that it's bad; it's stupid

[ArgleBargle12345 · 3/10 · 17 March 2009]

The movie is all about the terrible female angst of the lead character, who was implicated in a robbery/homicide by her lowlife boyfriend. But if you ever watched a cop show in your life, you know that the moment she didn't get out of that car and run and call the cops, she was an accomplice. And every day that she continues to cover up her boyfriend's guilt, she is an accomplice after the fact. She's an amoral criminal and I don't see how anyone can possibly feel sorry for her or be concerned about her "plight." Legally she is as responsible for the murder as the guy who pulled the trigger.

Anyway I'm sitting here watching it, so what's that say about me :-)

Glossy and slick (and crass) as a TV commercial...

[moonspinner55 · 2/10 · 9 May 2009]

Young girl 'innocently' ends up playing look-out while her boyfriend and his psychotic brother rob the jewelry store where the girl's mom works; after an employee is shot and killed, the girl feels the shame of guilt at being involved, but obstinately shuns her caring mother (who acts like this is abnormal behavior for a teenage girl!). The kind of hopeless, hapless TV-movie wherein everybody on-camera has been cast in the hopes of reminding viewers of somebody else. Nina Dobrev looks a lot like Vanessa Hudgens or a younger Katie Holmes, Steve Byers looks like a blond Keanu Reeves (and has apparently studied Reeves' patented tics), while Catherine Mary Stewart could be filling in for Hillary Swank. Product such as this is ground out for bored couch-potatoes, uninterested really in whether or not the picture is a good one as long as it keeps them awake. There's a sympathetic performance by likable Norman Mikeal Berketa (who looks a bit like Jeffrey Tambor), and the all's-well-that-ends-well conclusion is good for an unintentional laugh.

Bad acting, bad message

[CranberriAppl · 7 March 2022]

If you were a mom that not only had a coworker murdered while you were nearby, but a mom that also found out your daughter had knowledge of the crime and was involved...would your emotional state be as if she maxed out your credit card?

The only person who's acting didn't annoy me was Steve Byers (Brent). Nina Dobrev's acting was so bad. It was like watching Elena (the most annoying TVD character for me) a couple of years early. Justine was so whiny, so entitled, and just really hard to root for. I found it hard to write her off as just as naive teen.

I realize all cases are different, but the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. Justine was the lookout and when she realized what they were doing, she stayed there. She also hid her face from the old man witness. After all that and finding out someone was shot, she STILL didn't say anything. Why exactly are we supposed to root for her to not face consequences? Her trying to "sleep on" whether or not she'd go to the police took this movie from bad to absurd. I can't believe her mother gave her a chance to "think about it." A man died. On top of that, she was still protecting two guys who could have killed her mother. Really? Nothing about that knocked some sense into Justine?

And the mom...good grief. Show some emotion. She was more emotional over her poor coworker's death than she was about the realization of Justine's actions. I myself was shocked by what happened to Albert, but at the same time, a scene of the mother's realization was needed. Even the scene where she confronted Justine was so underwhelming that it really didn't match the gravity of what was happening by that point in the movie.

The scene with the button was so silly. It was such a plain button lol. Why didn't they use something more distinct. Or perhaps a better actress would have sold me. She just wasn't good. Then all the coddling of Justine instead of asking her wth were you thinking got on my nerves. The girl had such piss poor judgment. Not to mention she assaulted her friend at school and nothing happened.

The climax was so over the top. Why did NO ONE (the mom) call the police? All of that could have been avoided. The mom got shot because thick skulled Justine just couldn't grasp the seriousness of it all. . Justine should have at least gotten probation or community service. For me, the crime going from armed robbery to what the movie called felony manslaughter was more than enough reason for this movie to make her take responsibility. She literally never does. Those guys used her but she wasn't a hostage. And again, it could have easily been her mom since her mother normally didn't work that late. She never faced direct consequences. What a joke of a movie.

Was nice to see Meagan Rath in this. Remember her from the Being Human remake. Steve Byers I know from both HM and Lifetime Christmas movies and of course ND from TVD. Didn't know at first that the mom was Cary Grant's daughter. That was a bit of unexpected trivia but unlike her dad, her acting left a lot to be desired.

Speechless

[saltskin · 1/10 · 7 September 2008]

This was pretty awful. No, it was unbearably awful. Bad acting on ALL counts, one- dimensional characters (at best), storyline weak, rush and unlikeable. I was in the mood for one of those terrible, made-for-Lifetime-movies; you know the type, with has-been actors, and transparent, weakly delivered plots, bad staging, poor dialogue... Meredith Baxter- Birney, Judith Light... the usual suspects. This was more-or-less like that, but disappointing, in that it wasn't even innocently cheesy. However, I kept thinking that the mom in this one (Jennifer Grant?) would have been better cast as Heidi Fleiss in a bio-pic of the madam's life. They have similar equine features, and can't act. Other than that, pfft.

Was this a Lifetime movie?

[RobertMGomez · 1/10 · 9 September 2009]

I think it was, you can tell by the horrible everything and the even worse feeling you get when you watch it. It makes me sad that movies like this can make it onto an actual DVD. People are always complaining about the waste humans create in this day and age. They blame auto makers for giant SUV's, they blame Chuck Norris for leaving dead bodies everywhere, they also blame Rosie O'Donnell for constantly farting...but they should also blame people who make movies like this for wasting the plastic it took to make this disc. Also, this makes me wish the abortion age limit was raised. I think it should be set one year older than the director's current age. That way we can kill him and not feel horrible about it. Also, we should bring back the Riptide Rush flavor of Gatorade. That stuff was awesomeness in a bottle.

For this kind of lifetime movie it's watchable thanks to Nina Dobrev

[phd_travel · 7/10 · 28 April 2014]

A 17 year old girl inadvertently gets mixed up in a robbery planned by her boyfriend on the store her mother works in.

This lifetime movie isn't ground breaking but it's surprisingly watchable thanks to a good cast and good dialog.

Jennifer Grant as the mother is quite good.

The lovely pre Vampire Diaries Nina Dobrev takes a role that could have been annoying and makes her quite sympathetic especially when she does some irritating things.

It has a lesson about consequences about having the wrong boyfriend. Listen to your Moms girls!

Worth a watch.

My Daughter's Secret- Old Fashioned Murder Mystery ****

[edwagreen · 9/10 · 22 January 2011]

Excellent film where a college bound student's boyfriend and his brother make her an unwittingly accessory to both robbery and murder when they hold up the jewelry store that her mother works in and trick her into coming into the car and acting as the lookout.

Obviously, the girl becomes impossible to deal with as her behavior changes drastically as the police close in on who are the culprits.

Good detective work leads the police to the culprits. There is excitement throughout and the ending is well deserved but filled with panic.

This is a definite film dealing with conscience and ultimate redemption.

Wtf ??

[adeans-63119 · 22 January 2019]

Yet another of these 'movies' that leaves you really wondering - 'JUST HOW DO THESE PEOPLE (the 'film' makers !) CONTINUALLY FIND DUMB RICH PEOPLE TO BACK THEM ??' Silly little girl's boyfriend and his brother rob her mother's jewelry-store, KILLING a staff-member in the process - because the silly little-girl is so dumb she's left herself in the position where SHE could be charged with the murder. YET despite talking to their lawyer who advises BOTH mother and daughter to go to the police straight away, the silly little girl amazingly asks for 'time to think about it' - AND MUMMY AGREES ????? THAT'S the standard of this 'film' - made by people who seem to think the entire outside world is as dumb as them !

Right on the Button!!!

[lavatch · 8/10 · 5 April 2020]

It would be difficult to imagine any greater lapses in judgment than those of young Justine Dysart in "My Daughter's Secret." After her loving mother Denise warned Justine about dating a twenty-one-year-old high school dropout, Justine kept dating him and became enmeshed in the robbery of a jewelry store. Justine unknowingly provided her beau Brent and his older brother Reggie with insider information into how to rob the store where her mother works.

The excellent performances by the two actresses playing mother and daughter held the film together. Denise sensed that something was amiss with her daughter. Because of her good eye for detail, Denise recognized the button found by the police in the getaway vehicle as belonging to her daughter's clothing, and she finally came to the realization of her daughter's complicity in the robbery and the death of kind Albert.

At one point, waxing philosophical as she is getting drunk, Justine tells her bestie Courtney that "if you stare long enough into the abyss, then the abyss will stare into you." Justine did not seem to realize that she had fallen into the abyss. It was only due to the love a devoted mother that Justine was not staring at a 6' X 9' prison cell, instead of the beautiful home and pampered life that was gifted to her.

Ruined by terrible lead actress.

[rocksnikki-676-154672 · 30 August 2011]

While this film would almost certainly would have been mediocre regardless of casting, the actress (Jennifer Grant) who plays the mother's emotionless performance was so distracting that I couldn't focus on the rest of the movie. It's rather obvious that she's only getting work because she's the attractive daughter of a Hollywood legend. They may as well have casted a mannequin in the role -- they might have gotten a significantly more emotional performance if they had.

The plot itself is typical "daughter accidentally gets herself in trouble" fair. Aside from Statue-face, whose performance was abysmal, the actors were mediocre.