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The dramatis personae of "Shattered" resembles that of a Tennessee Williams play. Set in the Deep South, action revolves around Forrest Burnett, a good old boy and patriarch who becomes a city councilman and rises to the position of mayor. He has the local judges in his hip pocket, and he is able throw his weight and money around to control everyone in his orbit. Forrest is especially controlling of his long-suffering wife Maureen and his cowed son Kenneth, who is gay. To keep up appearances of what Forrest deems as propriety for the image of his son, Forrest helps to arrange a phony marriage for for Ken with the fiesty Kate Stenson. A weakness of the screenplay was that we never see the courting of Kate and Ken. It is simply announced that the marriage had occurred. With the strong backbone of the Kate, it was not persuasive that she would ever have agreed to a marriage of convenience with Ken, let alone fallen in love with him. The most painful scenes in the film are those with little Logan, the adopted son of Kate and Ken. The little boy was suffering from "schizoaffective disorder." As portrayed in the film, the problems of the troubled boy may have been due to the drug addition of his unbalanced mother, Emily Searcy. After Logan tragically dies when struck by a moving vehicle, the second half of the film is given over to the efforts of Kate to extricate herself and her daughter Emma from an intolerable marriage and the clutches of the tyrannical Forrest, who was in fact the father of little Logan. When this sordid background is revealed to the disgusted Kate, she confronts Ken by asserting that he should be ashamed of himself for "playing father to his brother." The filmmakers reasonably kept in check the highly melodramatic nature of the dysfunctional Burnett clan. There was even an ounce of compassion squeezed out of the paterfamilias Forrest when he finally acknowledged publicly that he supported the sexual orientation of his son. In fact, however, this admission was only a small dose of phony Southern Comfort doled out by unscrupulous Forrest for political purposes: it enabled him to be reelected another term as mayor.

I love TV movies. They're comforting in their predictability and formula. However, the difference between a good one and a bad one, is the actors. Molly Burnett here is down to earth enough to ground the film in reality. Ray Wise is always fun to watch, but Molly is the star here. Impossible not to root for her.

"Shattered," (2017). Directed by Natasha Kermani. Starring Ray Wise, Kate Burnett, and Tom Malloy. This film was obviously a labor of love! Produced as a humanitarian act and one which would be appreciated immeasurably by the one for whom it was intended. The direction was nuanced to perfection. Kate Burnett and Ray Wise nailed their characters, evoking emotion and body language to perfection. I do love a good puzzle and decoding a well done a contrario film. Thank you to the producer for bringing all the elements of this story to a superb film experience!

Horrible plot. Unbelievable. Several scenes where main character left her daughter in a hotel unsupervised but we're supposed to believe she's a good mom willing to fight to the end for her kids. I don't know how they got Ray wise but it had to have been a favor Lmaoo.

It says based on true events but I think it may have been based of multiple true events all pieced together...mostly the personal lives of politicians.

So, I hesitated on this one because it had the appearance of a made for tv BS movie, but I did like it and think it is slightly underrated for what it is. It is not necessarily any form of scary thriller, but it is a mystery of sorts and the main female character pulls it off. Anyone who has spent significant time in that part of the US will recognize the thickness of the mystery. The female lead is a better actress than expected. Worth the time spent watching it on this lazy day off I am treating myself to.

This is my first film review but I felt the need to review this because this film is underrated. Although part way through you have an idea where the film is going it is still intriguing and you still want to see it until the end; especially since it has some great acting by the lead character and the rest of the cast. You really get to care for the characters. Do watch this film, it is worth it. It's a gem of a movie and you won't regret it.