"Small Sacrifices" is based on the story of Elizabeth Diane Downs aka Diane Downs who shot her 2 daughters and 1 son in 1983 on a lonely country road while she was driving the kids home from a friend's house late at night. Diane said time and again a strange man with shaggy hair came out of the shadows and demanded her car. When she refused, he shot her sleeping children. In the book by Ann Rule, the kids are named Christie, Cheryl and Danny. In this treatment, they go under the aliases of Karen, Shauna and Robbie. In a way this confuses me because the real names of the kids are in the well-known book and in the TV movie of the same title they go under other names and everyone can find the real names by reading the book!
Mild criticism aside, this movie shows another great performance by the late, wonderful Farrah Fawcett! She is so good as the narcissistic, sociopathic Diane Downs who wanted her new boyfried, Lew Lewiston (Ryan O'Neal) to be a father to the kids even though he went the permanent route of ensuring he would never have children by getting a vasectomy. After his rejection, Diane basically loses it and writes him letters proclaiming her love for the married Lew. This was the catalyst for the shooting of the three children by their mom.
All the performers are great in this movie! John Shea goes toe-to-toe with Farrah as Frank Joziak the prosecutor and he really cares about her children. A very young Emily Perkins is also wonderful as the traumatized Karen who saw her mother shot her brother and sister and her. She is the one who testifies against her mother because Shauna was shot to death and while Robbie was paralyzed by the bullet, he was too young to testify in court. Next to "The Burning Bed" Farrah has another winner in the TV movie arena!
Mild criticism aside, this movie shows another great performance by the late, wonderful Farrah Fawcett! She is so good as the narcissistic, sociopathic Diane Downs who wanted her new boyfried, Lew Lewiston (Ryan O'Neal) to be a father to the kids even though he went the permanent route of ensuring he would never have children by getting a vasectomy. After his rejection, Diane basically loses it and writes him letters proclaiming her love for the married Lew. This was the catalyst for the shooting of the three children by their mom.
All the performers are great in this movie! John Shea goes toe-to-toe with Farrah as Frank Joziak the prosecutor and he really cares about her children. A very young Emily Perkins is also wonderful as the traumatized Karen who saw her mother shot her brother and sister and her. She is the one who testifies against her mother because Shauna was shot to death and while Robbie was paralyzed by the bullet, he was too young to testify in court. Next to "The Burning Bed" Farrah has another winner in the TV movie arena!