Review of A Child Lost Forever: The Jerry Sherwood Story

This story of yet another small child, abused and battered to the point of death, is heartbreaking and poignant. Unfortunately, the actors and the movie itself just aren't up to the task. Almost everyone seemed like an amateur acting in a high school production, reading their lines in strangely stilted tones. Beverly D'Angelo's portrayal of the birth mother was so shockingly off-balance that I began to wonder why I never noticed what a poor actress she is. When trying to enlist the help of a reporter to investigate the possible murder of her son many years earlier, she reverts to flirting and teasing. When he asks her who the murder victim was, she answers with a big smile, bright eyes (still flirting) and a strangely triumphant grin on her face, "My son!" It was grotesque and repulsive. Initially the assistant D.A. who is going to prosecute the case is hostile and unsympathetic to the birth mother - the next thing you know, the A.D.A is trying to convince the victim's surviving brother to be a witness for the prosecution because she (the A.D.A) was "adopted too" blah, blah. We are never told or shown how this turn of heart came about. Eh...why go on, it's a heartbreaker but the acting was so bizarre and annoying it's almost unbearable to watch.