The Jodi Picoult Collection is a two-disc DVD set with three Lifetime movies based on the popular novels by Jodi Picoult. I’ve read online a little about what people have thought of these films and she’s got some diehard fans out there! This is a review from someone that hasn’t read the novels. Think of it as an outside point-of-view.
Salem Falls is the 2011 film starring James Van Der Beek. It’s about a former teacher named Jack (James Van Der Beek) that starts a new life in a small town after some accusations of rape. He falls in love with a grief-stricken mother named Addie (Sarah Carter). As soon as he moves in, a young girl named Gillian (AJ Michalka) is convinced that he’s “the one” after a spell that she had cast to find a lover. She stops at nothing to get what she wants, spells and all!
I honestly thought that the acting in this movie was great and that James and AJ were the stand out performers in this film. I will admit that there wasn’t a lot of character development and you didn’t find out too much about these people, but it’s a Lifetime movie; I’m not expecting a movie like Thirteen.
I’m not sure how much I would recommend this movie, because there’s a lot of implied nudity and witchcraft. I’m not saying that I was offended because I wasn’t, but I believe that a lot of people could be very easily. I do think that this movie made a good point about being too quick to judge people since the people in this movie were ready to run Jack out of town before he even did anything.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes, that is AJ from the former pop duo Aly & AJ!
Plain Truth is a 2004 film starring Mariska Hargitay and Alison Pill. It’s about a lawyer named Ellie (Mariska Hargitay) that takes the case of an Amish girl named Katie (Alison Pill) who is accused of killing her baby.
I thought that I would be bored during this movie but it turned out to be my favorite one out of the three. I really liked that Alison was in the movie, too because I’ve been keeping a close eye on her career since I was in high school. She’s a very good actress and I want to see more of her. As always, she was great!
More than anything, I liked this story. You got to know an Amish girl that cared about her Amish ways but secretly wanted a normal life. (Well, normal to us, anyway!) You also got to know a lawyer that was there to do her job but ended up really caring for her client. Also, the ending is a doozie, so please, watch EVERY minute. You will be shocked! Also, I do recommend this one.
The Pact is a 2002 film starring Megan Mullally and Juliet Stevenson. It was about a young couple that agrees to commit suicide together, but things go mysteriously wrong when only the girl dies. The plot is the aftermath and how it affected the two families and the surviving partner.
This is the saddest one out of the three. As someone who has battled depression, this was hard to watch. It’s so sad when one commits suicide. When we hear about a suicide story, we hear about the victim, which is good, but we don’t hear too much about the aftermath. In this movie, we saw so much of that. It was devastating to watch. I hope that anyone who is depressed knows that a solution that lasts forever isn’t right. I do want to point out that this movie is as realistic as one can be and Megan Mullally was amazing.
I did like this movie. Now, do I recommend this whole DVD collection? It depends. To the movie-of-the-week lovers, yes. To those that may get upset easily, I wouldn’t. I would just say know your boundaries and make your best guess. If I were to recommend just one, it would be Plain Truth. That one movie might be worth getting the whole collection for because it was better than the average TV movie.
