Carolina Moon (2007)

Memorable, crazy movie

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a terrible movie. It starts out well, and the premise is intriguing and engaging: a young woman, Victoria, returns to her native town of Progress, North Carolina, many years after her parents and she left following the rape and murder of Victoria's best friend, Hope, which was never satisfactorily resolved. Victoria is also a natural-born seer or clairvoyant, although she can only see the past and the present, not the future. Now she feels as though she is back in town to find some peace of mind, and also to, somehow, reconcile with her past. It won't be easy, because she will be haunted by her past, and meet with the hostility of Hope's mother. But she will also find allies...I said that it is a terrible movie, because it takes little to go all wrong, lame, boring, and lacking any coherence, sense, pace, or inner logic at all. The mystery part of the movie quickly loses steam as it tries to turn into romantic comedy with bits of family drama and comic relief that never really works. The characters turn into one thing then another and yet none of them is a full character that we really care about, the closest to that being the leading character of Victoria. The ending comes about quite abruptly and out of nowhere really, and it doesn't make any sense either.

Once it started rolling I forgot this is a TV movie, until I chanced upon the IMDb page and started reading the comments. I'm very surprised to see a few very negative comments about this film. It may not be the perfect supernatural thriller or mystery story, but it's got great acting and some beautiful actresses, which let's face it, does help, and I'm not talking about supermodel, centerfold kinds of looks. (For those interested in men, they aren't bad either. Well, most of them.) It is of course about a psychic woman, but only touches upon the supernatural and does not run away with it. It has a villain, a serial killer, but keeps you guessing at who he, or she, may be. And unlike so many stories set in America's Bible Belt, you can't tell the good and bad guys based on their religiosity, their gods. It does confront, somewhat in passing, many grave societal issues, including child abuse, religious violence, gender inequality, and others, without being overly dramatic or moralizing.This movie is a breath of fresh air, made with care not only about the writing, the dialog, but also a care to avoid the clichés that make most TV movies so pedestrian and predictable.I never read the book, so it could well be superior. All I know is, Carolina Moon ain't bad at all.

I have never read any of Nora Roberts' books and didn't realise this was a Telemovie until visiting this site after watching it, so I was quite surprised to find it was a telemovie. I was very well done for the most part.The acting on the most part was good and I thought Claire Forlani did a very good job. As someone else commented Oliver Hudson's acting was a little wooden, but not having seen him before I can hardly be a judge of his work other than this movie.This is the type of movie that I like, lots of extra plots, twists and psychic moments, although I picked the killer in the first 10 minutes.Some of it was predictable but it was still worth watching.

Fantastic portrayal of a Nora Roberts novel which had me spellbound from the very beginning of this film to the very end. This film captures your attention on two very young girls swimming in a lake and one of the girls, Claire Forlani,(Tori),"Hooligans", has the ability to see visions in her head that tell her deep dark things that have happened or going to happen. Oliver Hudson,(Cade Lavelle) and Josie Davis,(Faith Lavelle) both give great supporting roles along with Jacqueline Bisset,( Margaret). There is some torrid love scenes involving Faith Lavelle along with a few laughs and bad child abuse scenes which happened to Tori when she was very young. This is a first Class Nora Roberts TV film and is definitely not your routine television entertainment. FIRST CLASS Enjoy