Girl in Room 13 (2022 TV Movie) User Reviews

Motel Hell

[lavatch · 5/10 · 20 September 2022]

"Girl in Room 13" was a made-for-television film that sought to raise awareness about the horrific practice of human trafficking. The unspeakable horrors were depicted in the treatment of the main character, Grace, who is abducted by an ex-boyfriend, who attempts to sell her into permanent bondage. Room 13 is the motel room in which Grace experiences a living hell.

Much credit should go to reviewer "deedrala" on this site for her perfect description of the man who kidnaps and seeks to traffic Grace: "Richie, who's one of the worst slimebags ever to exist in any LMN movie to date."

The filmmakers were successful in demonstrating how it was not the "slimebag" alone, but a more extensive web of active and passive participants at the heart of the human trafficking experience. The bartender named "Red" was smoothly working with Richie to lure Grace into a meeting by floating the story that he needed cash to pay for the hospital bills of his child.

There was also the depraved motel proprietress, Rayne, who was renting rooms to Richie with full knowledge that women were being held captive in her establishment. Even the store manager down the street seemed aware of the purpose of the Garden State Parkway Motel, when she identified the motel to Grace's mom Janie and gave helpful directions.

The police in this film were a non-factor in the discovery of Grace's whereabouts. Even when shown film footage of her captor placing her in the car, the police would not even run a check on Richie's license plates.

If the film is accurately presenting the complex network of human trafficking and the passivity of those turning a blind eye, the situation is a serious indictment of the collapse of human values and decency in the refusal to become involved in putting an end to a phenomenon that may involve as many as 25 million victims globally.

Disappointing!

[bzenti · 4/10 · 10 October 2022]

I almost didn't sit through the whole thing. The acting was poor by most of the cast, most of the time. AH seemed high and tweaking most of the film. There were multiple errors that should have been caught ie: It's a US location filmed in Canada and they said Social Insurance number (cdn) rather than Social Security number. Simple stuff. It's also an illogical script. For example, the mom doesn't put up missing signs until day 9?! There are multiple examples of this throughout the film. It just seems that nobody was really paying attention, to the story or to the production. I'm sad it's Anne's last film as she was so much better than in this film.

Lifetime movie

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 13 April 2023]

Grace (Larissa Dias) is staying clean after her latest rehab. Her mother Janie (Anne Heche) is supportive and hopeful. While doing a favor for a friend, Grace gets kidnapped by druggie former boyfriend Richie. She's locked in a motel room to be broken down for trafficking. Most think that she had fallen off the wagon again, but Janie is relentless in her search for her daughter.

This is one of those Lifetime woman-in-trouble movie. It's noteworthy for being one of Anne Heche's final roles. Elisabeth Röhm is also trying her hand in directing. She seems to be functional, but nothing spectacular. First, Grace needs to fight harder. It's more realistic and much more compelling to push the action. The movie needs to increase the intensity at every turn and this fails to do that. There are also too many dumb characters. I wonder how much money the motel workers are getting paid to turn a blind eye to the scheme. Whatever it is, it is not enough. He's even late for the motel rental. It makes no sense. This is not a smart movie. I get that her repeated drug uses have worn down the family. In which case, the story would work better if the dad is gone and Janie is truly alone. All in all, this is a Lifetime movie and not a good one at that.

Well..

[ts-0000 · 18 September 2022]

Bitter sweet considering,was one of the last tv projects of Anne's before her death.

That being said.. She didn't seem healthy,was it just me feeling this?

Granted was portraying a frantic mom,but seemed more substance induced.

Was a difficult subject matter that was portrayed,all the cast was decent enough.

I'm surprised the parents didn't go to the news channel,have the one social media savvy daughter post online & so forth.. It wasn't until many days later,they finally put up posters after the authorities didn't do much.

Felt maybe the storyline was lacking some context,but most of the acting carried things ok.. The previews made it more compelling.

Unfortunately have seen other movies,that brought said topic to light better.

Not a film interested in watching,again.. Despite Anne(RIP)being in it.

Movie is ONE BIG FAT PLOTHOLE

[deedrala · 3/10 · 18 September 2022]

"Girl in Room 13"

Only giving this thing a 3 out of 10 due to Ann Heche's brilliant performance, and it includes nods to both the girl who played her daughter and her kidnapper for their believable portrayals.

I wanted to like this movie for two reasons: Ann Heche and Elisabeth Rohm as director. Ann did not disappoint. But how could both of them be involved with a movie that's one big huge plothole - with several ingrained, just as annoying mini-plotholes??

BRIEF SUMMARY: Ann (as Janie) plays a mom who's in her second marriage, to Burt, with his daughter Toni as her step-daughter, and her own two kids - Rex and Grace. Grace, an expert swimmer/diver, is over 18 and just got out of rehab for her opioid addiction. She works at her brother Rex's restaurant and lives in a basement room there temporarily. Another waitress/barmaid there - 'Red' - sets her up to be kidnapped by Grace's ex Richie, who's one of the worst slimebags ever to exist in any LMN movie to date. Richie's sole motive is to sell her into human sex trafficking to make thousands of dollars off of her, and he puts her in a cheap motel room to break her spirit to turn her into a drugged, mindless "piece of meat", as he calls her. Since the police can't do much and have no leads, it's up to Burt and Janie to do the necessary investigating and legwork to find her before it's too late.

NEWS FLASH: There wouldn't be a movie at all if not for the main blatant contrivance - much less the other smaller ones associated with it.

MAJOR/MAIN PLOTHOLE: When Grace enters the restaurant on her day off, Red approaches her with the most transparent, ridiculous request that sets the rest of the plot in motion - she asks her if she'll meet Richie (who's already primed/groomed her with a beautiful gift and a short video call where he made sure his young son was available to endear Grace to the both of them) and give him an envelope supposedly full of money so he can pay the hospital to care for his son who is suddenly ill/injured. And because they had to film another hour or so of this thing, Grace - who was already presented as an intelligent stable young woman who's no longer an addict and had already pronounced Richie as "trouble" to Red - RIDICULOUSLY AGREES TO DO IT, apparently because they used Richie's son to pull on her heartstrings to make it a request she couldn't refuse.

Grace did ask Red why she couldn't meet him and her excuse was because she had to work her shift (although she never showed back up to either her job or apartment after that day when Grace was kidnapped).

In the real world without this childishly contrived drivel, Grace would have simply asked: "Why can't Richie come HERE to the restaurant to get it from you?" If he has a car to drive to meet Grace elsewhere to get the envelope, he can drive to the restaurant to get it from Red. Grace knew he was "trouble" and knew better than to see him again, yet she falls for the obvious lie that he needs the money to pay the hospital to take care of his son. Anyone would automatically know that hospitals don't need to be paid cash upfront before they'll tend to a sick/injured child. Grace would know that since she was not stupid. She should have been able to see right through Red's story. That's where it lost me. I sat through the rest of it only to witness one of the last-ever brilliant works of Ann Heche.

THE LESSER-BUT-JUST-AS-IRRITATING PLOTHOLES:

1) Neither Burt nor Janie thought to look up her credit card purchases during her disappearance?? Especially after they spoke to one of them who said the card was closed due to FRAUDULENT RETURNS FOR CASH?? And Burt just said, "Okay that's all I need", and hung up, and didn't immediately pull up the account online to see where the fraud took place?? It wasn't until way later, near the end, that it finally dawned on Janie to do it.

2) There is NO WAY that any legitimate retail establishment would continually do credit card returns for cash, and keep getting away with it, to the point that when Janie frantically asked the cashier about her daughter being there, the cashier said, "The people that do those kind of returns usually come from the Garden State Parkway Motel down the street."

WHAT??!? So the store cashiers are knowingly and continually doing these fraudulent credit card transactions and even know where the low-lifes are staying, but no law enforcement has been involved to date??!?

3) When Grace got annoyed at her mother for hesitating to give her permission to use Toni's car to meet Richie to give him the money: it wasn't her mother's place to let her use her step-sister's car. But Janie only briefly mentioned that it was Toni's car before finally relenting and giving her permission to use it. Why wasn't Toni herself there to give her permission to use it if her car was there? Why was Grace asking Janie for permission to use it?

These and a few other smaller plotholes are major insults to viewers' intelligence. The writers and director, et al, should know better. It was a very difficult movie to get through for several reasons:

1) Ann Heche's recent tragic, senseless death

2) the subject matter and the brutal treatment of Grace by Richie and others

3) the ineptness and nonchalance of the producer and director in putting together a movie with such blatant plot holes/contrivances The real travesty is that this kind of incompetence in portraying the real global problem of human sex trafficking diminishes the horrific tragedy of the issue and almost makes a mockery of it when it's presented in this juvenile level of production.

Grade D / 3 out of 10 (only for Ann herself and performances of Max and Larissa)

The girl in room 13

[laurabuc-02670 · 7/10 · 16 April 2023]

I don't know why everybody seems to be down on Anne Heche for her role in this movie. I thought she did a great job portraying a mother who is frantically looking for her daughter and not getting help from the law. I wish though that they would've had, a bit more information in the movie about just how bad sexual trafficking really is. I did not like the fact that at the end of the movie they did not say what happened to the guy Richie or her so-called ex coworker Red. It's disgusting that women would be involved in something as terrible as sex trafficking, but hey, I guess money is all that matters to them. Besides the one rape scene at the beginning of the movie when Richie first took her into the hotel, I was a bit surprised that they did not show more men coming into her room, though usually the man who abducts the female is usually the one that will continually keep raping her over a period of days to break them down. Often those other guys are involved in the emotional, mental and sexual breakdown of the victim until they are sold. I don't know if that's why some people were disappointed in the movie, I'd hate to think that that was the reason. I know this is based on a true story, and I don't know how often the mother or the stepfather kept contacting the police, but the movie did seem like it was more about the mothers search for her daughter. I know that often hotels/motels are involved in covering up such a terrible thing, as well as other industries, and I don't know why more of a focus is not put on finding and helping victims. There are so many men that are such pedophiles and sexual perverts it is so disgusting, I sometimes wonder if there are vigilante people out there that take matters into their own hands because you sure don't hear about them.

Couldn't get through it

[pumping_iron-1 · 1/10 · 8 November 2022]

I got through about 6 minutes of this movie and I think that was too long. The acting is horrible. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Anne Heche overacts and seems spastic. I don't know why they paired her with a man who looks half her age and she looks like his mother. There is absolutely no chemistry and their relationship as husband and wife is not believable at all. Her hairdresser either did an awful job on her hair or she just didn't bother to comb it. It looked unkempt. I know this is based on a true story. But this story needed better actors. I think Otis the dog is the best actor in the entire cast.

I wouldn't quite call this accurate

[revenentswrath · 2/10 · 18 February 2023]

Its a reimagining of a real story so a lot of fantasy fiction involved and the actors themselves couldn't pull off real emotion so its hard to like given the actors are acting and kind of poorly except the boyfriend actor he actually pulls off his role well but everyone else was probably a miscast as none really portrayed any feelings at all to me anyways.

I really feel plastic people are not very good at acting anymore. I think actors who could portray real emotion would have better suited here for the "drama" this film is supposed to be showing to everyone who is watchin it.

Its just disappointing as it could have been great had a few more decent actors been purchased.

Anne Heche's Last Performance

[Sylviastel · 5/10 · 18 September 2022]

It's a typical lifetime movie, Anne Heche played Grace's mother, a recovering addict, avid swimmer and diver. It is supposed to be set in New Jersey but filmed in Canada. She is trying to restart her life, grace has a job at a restaurant. She gets lured into a false trap. Grace ends up getting kidnapped, raped and tortured in a motel room by an ex boyfriend. Her mother is out there trying to convince the police or her husband. I still can't find or stomach how she pleads for help only to be ignored, even when she finally escapes into the linen van, the hotel manager calls her captor. I hope it's not a true story.

Simple film with a very strong message, a must watch

[tatiana-zupan · 10/10 · 5 May 2024]

I thought the film was simple and had a very strong message about human trafficking. Anne Heche was, imho great. This is what the films should be like. There was no mention of her in the In memoriam at the Oscars, which shows what Hollywood is all about.

This film is a must watch, it shows how to recognize the abuse, the victims, the turmoil. Victims are not just women, they are men and children, too. We watch but we don't see, we should look at people around us, we need to recognize this in real life in order to help victims.

Message at the end of the film is this in 2020 the International Labour Organisation estimated that there are currently 25 million victims of human trafficking around the world.

To conduct their operations, traffickers need the assistance of hospitality industry, the banking system to launder money, the transportation industry, and Internet platforms to recruit and advertise their victims.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING is a $150 billion a year global industry.

The worst movie ever👎🏼

[psxexperten · 1/10 · 21 September 2022]

Starts Off Bad, But Wait, it Gets Worse... Whoever makes this garbage should stop and focus on something else. Wedding videos maybe? Or possibly just a new career in general because this is fraud.

With unoriginal scenes, poor acting skills, and just a terrible plot- this movie has managed to make amazed at just how AWFUL a movie can be.

By far the worst movie I've ever watched in my life If you want to waste your time, and I mean waste it to the point that there is not a single net benefit, this is your movie.

Stay away at all cost, don't waste any time on this B movie crap.

This movie is insanely terrible.

Had no idea it was Anne Heche but her issues became apparent.

[dhcfcrn · 1/10 · 24 September 2023]

I had no idea who was in the movie when I started watching. Typical low budget tv movie producing. The odd thing was that after an hour, I was befuddled by the mother character. While I couldn't fault the actress' passion, her addled, frantic approach at first seemed like wild overacting, but after a while, seemed more like the antics of a drug addict... ironic since the movie is about a former addiction daughter. She didn't play distressed mother, she played... brain fried druggie. That's when I looked up the info on the channel info and saw it was Anne Heche. Wow... you can see how far gone she was... life intruding on art. The other actors actually seem surprisingly good, and they simply... act normally around Heche's crazy frantic acting.

Sorry but Heche was a disappointment

[haroot_azarian · 27 March 2023]

OK I really liked Anne Heche, and have seen a few of her movies. And her loss is very sad, but I must say that her acting in this Lifetime movie was abysmal. She was over the top with her emotions, and I must admit the script did not help at all. Some of the lines were so unrealistic and stupid that made me shake my head.

The story had great potential and was good. The scenario was not at all far-fetched. Larissa Dias' performance was good.

The husband and the detective were total douchebags. I am pretty sure in real life cops cannot be that uniterested in a situation like Grace's, especially even when CCTV footage of Grace's abduction was shown to the dimwit cop.

Also the "missing" flyers did not begin to be handed out until day eight of the disappearance. This was a major unrealistic part of the movie. In real life I am sure flyers are made within the first 48 hours.

Overall this was an average Lifetime movie, but like I said Heche's performance was a huge let down. And I agree with one viewer, to me also it seemed like she was high on something, coke maybe? After her tragic death they did confirm that she had used substances after all.

Terrible Acting

[terris-64250 · 1/10 · 30 October 2022]

This movie might be based on a true story, but like someone else said, the plot was poorly executed! The acting was terrible and every scene was predictable. There were a couple scenes where the victim could have easily escaped and it was like a bad horror movie. Instead of signaling for help or running away, she runs 20 feet and hides. Anne Heche made some great movies throughout her career and I can't believe she starred in this garbage.

Lifetime and Hallmark must have strict shooting schedules and a quota to produce so many movies a year. They need to slow their roll and start producing more quality content.

I cant believe I gave up prime time Halloween movie watching for this.

Subject matter was so poorly executed...

[haku_pure · 2/10 · 27 September 2022]

Why does LMN even bother making movies like this if they can't even portray the stories right. Law & Order:SVU does a better job at making a story seem so real that it sends shivers up your spine. But this? This isn't it people. Just because you have a gripping story to tell doesn't mean that it will sell itself.

For starters how in the world was he able to kidnap her to begin with? He had no weapon, no knife or a gun. And I understand that it is more then possible to abduct someone with sheer force a lone, but come on. The guy was skinny... you're telling me she never fought back because she was "scared". Make it believable people! Even when he forced her into the grocery store and claimed he would kill her...WITH WHAT?! It just didn't feel as if it had any substance at all, as if she was just complying with her kidnapper because it was the entire plot of the movie. And yes she did fight back to a degree, begged for her life, tried to run away...but I can guarantee you that in the real world a woman might be scared but she would be more willing to fight back if the man trying to abduct her was completely unarmed.

I'd love to meet the people who review these movies before they are aired because it felt like watching a crappy Hallmark movie that didn't want to "take it too far". I get that this is a very sensitive and dark topic, but these movies are meant to inform viewers of how serious human sex trafficking is. "Girl in room 13" fell ridiculously short of that only because it failed to tell the story properly.

Pro tip: If you can't portray a story to it's full extent, DON'T PORTRAY IT AT ALL!

Adults are free to disappear

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 2 November 2022]

After three attempts at rehab, Grace (Larissa Dias) is finally off of opioids. She has a restaurant job and lives away from home. Her parents are realtors and have money to burn. They are very supportive. Grace gets tricked into seeing her ex-boyfriend who she claims is trouble. He abducts her and rapes her repeatedly preparing her to be a sex worker. He has a connection that will pay five thousand dollars for her after he samples the wares. The police won't do anything as Grace is an adult and former addict. They don't believe something is wrong so mom has to jump into action.

This is a common Lifetime film theme. The sex traffic aspect provides enough titillation to attack and audience. Boring stuff.

Guide: No swearing or nudity. Rape.