From my favorite movies..

A Brilliant Conflict

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

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I liked the overall look of this film and also the work of the actors. Escpecially the main characters, Amish girl and her lawyer do a good job, I like the closeup shots of their eyes and faces, those are wonderful, to portray emotions and expressions in their eyes in such a way is really good. The problem of this movie is that it is trying to be a thriller and an psychological movie at the same time. It could have chosen one or the other, that would have made it more intense. I think a murder mystery thriller in the Amish environment would have been a mighty good idea. Or then full-time psychological drama, the clash of Amish world and regular Western world through personal drama of one person. At the moment this hoovering on the border of both genres makes the movie weaker. In spite of this, overall it was an interesting movie, and the actors did a really good job.

This film adequately portrays the kind of damage that can be done by religious cults where conformance and issues resulting from it trump all considerations for the feelings and even the lives of the people ensnared.The courtroom scenes are laughably unrealistic (even more than normal for a TV movie).The previous reviewer who indicates that Katie was drunk and/or unconscious when the baby was conceived was a bit confused. That was one of her original obvious lies. The baby was the product of a romantic relationship.

***Spoilers*** When it becomes evident that a newborn baby found dead floating in a nearby lake is that of Amish teenager Katie Ficth, Alison Pill, all hell breaks loose in the Lancaster County Amish community where Katie lives. It's just can't be that a member of the god fearing and law-abiding Amish could have committed such a dastardly and ungodly deed! Having sex out of marriage and killing one's own child at birth!With defense attorney Ellie Harrison, Mariska Hargitay, taking on the case in Katie's behalf she soon realizes that her client is holding back some very vital evidence that if made available in her defense could very well clear her of the murder charge. Katie seems to feel more guilty in her thoughts not her actions, if any, in both her getting pregnant and the death of her baby, a boy, both which she emphatically denies.With Katie facing both disgrace in the Amish Comunity as well as a 10 to 15 year sentence if convicted in her child's death she starts to crack under the pressure and slowly the awful truth comes out. That happens when Katie's disowned, by the man of the Fitch household father Aaron played by Jack Niklas, older brother Jacob, Alec McClure, shows up at the Fitch farm to lend support to his beleaguered kid sister. ***SPOILERS**** With guilt written all over his face it turns out that Jacob was the one responsible for Katie problems. Being kicked out of the Fitch household by his outraged dad Aaron for disobeying him and going to collage, to get his mind corrupted, Jacob invited Katie to spend some time with him in the big city. It's there where she got romantically involved, after getting drunk, with fellow collage student Adam Sinclair, Christopher Ralph. As it turned out it was Adam who put a drunk and unconscious Katie in the "family way" without her knowing him about it, by going abroad to study for his doctorate in far off Spain, until it was too late.With her now going on trial for the murder of her newborn child Katie is steadfast not to defend her actions in her child death even if it means that she'll end up being found guilty and sent to prison. As it turns out Katie is far more distraught to having been found out to have had sex out of marriage with Adam then to that of the death of her own child!***MAJOR SPOILER*** With all the jolts and surprises in the movie the ending is a real mind blower! It's then that a by now shell shocked, from what she went through in the trail, Ellie Harrison got the truth to who was responsible for Katie's baby's death for the person who committed it! That mind blowing revelation was something so unbelievable that it completely eclipsed everything else that happened up until then in the movie! And left Ellie in such a state of shock that she a top flight defense attorney, who's seen everything there is to see in crimes committed, was left totally speechless!

Wow. The movie ended about 20 minutes ago, and I have to say that it took me some time after to regain the ability to blink. While it was in some ways your typical made-for-TV film, it had twists and turns that one definitely does not expect, and just when you think you are headed in the right direction, your mind is spun out of control in the opposite way.The fact that it is based about an 18 year old Amish girl is a key factor in this murder mystery. It seems in this family, everyone has a secret to tell, but no one is talking. I've not read the book...but I think I know what I'm going to do the next time I'm at the library! This movie tale definitely made me want to delve deeper and see what from what was played out on screen to what that author actually wrote on paper.