Nobody’s Child

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Telefilm: B

 

 

Marlo Thomas is one of the great and even more underrated actresses of our time.  That Girl is an underrated classic, while she continued to push the television medium any opportunity she could.  1986 brought another triumph playing Marie Balter, a woman with a devastating childhood that causes her very severe panic attacks.  When she is misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia instead, she spends 20 years in a mental institute and almost loses herself forever in Nobody’s Child, one of the last great TV movies of the original telefilm cycle.

 

The film opens with Marie being thrown out of her home by her screwed-up parents yet again, which brings her back to the local mental hospital again.  The great Lee Grant turned director for this project and does an ace job in a story about mental illness that endures remarkable well twenty years later.  The Mary Gallagher/Ara Watson teleplay pulls no punches and offers Thomas one of the most challenging roles of her career, one which she more than pulls off.  Backed by a supporting cast that includes Ray Baker, Caroline Kava, Kathy Baker, and Anna Marie Horsford, this is a powerful work that seems miles away from the lame reality TV and reminds us of how great TV used to be.  It is always compassionate, realistic and powerful, making one wonder what happened to the heart and soul of such storytelling today.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is the weak point of the disc, with a fuzzy image from what looks to be an NTSC transfer.  Amazingly, the film was shot by legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist, best known for his work with the legendary Ingmar Bergman (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and Woody Allen among others, so this is one of those telefilms that deserves serious restoration and a digital high definition transfer.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is good and clean for its age, including a solid music score by the underrated Michael Small, whose work includes the original Stepford Wives, The Parallax View, Night Moves and The Star Chamber.  There are no extras, except for other Koch Vision titles before the film begins, but Nobody’s Child deserves special edition treatment and if this does well enough, maybe it could get it down the line.  Don’t wait that long, though, to see it.  Now this is must-see TV!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo