Oscar-winner Viola Davis plays a judge in a new movie on lifetime. She also is the executive producer of the tense movie about a family-court judge in charge of a very challenging custody case concerning a single mother and her two young children. The custody case was complicated throughout the movie that was two and a half hours long. Usually, movies on "Lifetime" are only two-hours long.
Every parent's nightmare
The New York Times calls what happened in "Custody" every parent's nightmare. In a split second, a tired working mother, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, comes home from work and finds her young son downstairs with a group of older children she suspected of doing drugs.
She drags him upstairs and when she loses her grip on the boy's arm, he falls and hits his face on a glass top coffee table. He goes to school the next day with a gash on his forehead. A teacher calls Child Protective Services who takes her son and a younger daughter away. After the children are in the system, it takes multiple court appearances and three months for her to get them back.
The judge
The judge overseeing the case goes through challenges of her own while dealing with the case. She finds out her husband, placed by Tony Shalhoub, is having an affair with her oldest friend's wife. She cuts up his clothes and throws him out of the house. After carefully thinking over the situation, she takes him back.
To her dismay, he asks her for a divorce.
One movie critic gave mixed reviews claiming there were parts that didn't fit into the movie. For example, the reviewer couldn't understand why the young female lawyer's story about her uncle touching her inappropriately when she was a child was included in the movie. However, while the movie focused on the major case of the young mother fighting to get her children back, all the main characters were trying to right the wrongs in their personal lives while doing their jobs in court.
Based on real events
Even though "Custody" was a Lifetime movie, director James Lapine told the Daily News that the stories behind the film were very true. In fact, he said he sat in on real Family Court proceedings in New York and got inspirations to write "Custody" because he wanted to give a voice to the real cases that exist every day.
The premiere of "Custody" aired on Lifetime on Saturday, March 4. It is worth watching when it airs again.
