Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

Lisa is 17 years old and contemplating taking her own life. That night, she is kidnapped and begins to fight for survival. The smart girl manages to exploit the criminal’s weaknesses to escape, but when she returns home, no one believes her story — except for one detective.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey has few ambitions beyond “telling the story well”. Katie Douglas’s good performance as Lisa prevents the film from following her vocation too much for simplicity. The actress oscillates well between moments of vulnerability and those in which courage seems disproportionate to her young age and thin body. But, the plot unfolds in a lukewarm way. In it, both the villains and the good guys are evident and clear, that is, there are no ambiguities circulating in this universe. Jim Donovan could emphasize the protagonist’s deductive capacity driven by previous circumstances to always be prepared for the worst; there was also space to better balance the personal drama of the girl introduced to tragedies from an early age and the tension inherent in the search for the criminal; he equally could have made Lisa’s bond with her sister more relevant, but he prefers to transform the other girl only into a sufferer who can do little at a distance; finally, it would add a lot to the result if it worked between the lines and the social framework behind the gestures and responses (misogyny, structural machismo, female fragility, police structure, etc.). The film sticks much more to the facts, to what happened, and less to the issues that inevitably permeate them. Therefore, it privileges the reports to provoke the spectator’s reflections. and less to the issues that inevitably permeate them. Therefore, it privileges the reports to provoke the spectator’s reflections. and less to the issues that inevitably permeate them. Therefore, it privileges the reports to provoke the spectator’s reflections.

• Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey