It is easy to judge people who get manipulated easily, until we find ourselves in a similar situation, getting forced to act in an uncharacteristic way after having our emotions and insecurities toyed with and without even realizing it, we end up doing something we end up regretting forever. Such is the story of Ruby Franke, who ruined the perfect life she had, and that of her family as well, after being brainwashed for a prolonged period by an unscrupulous therapist named Jodie Hildebrandt. The Lifetime TV movie Mormon Mom Gone Wrong: The Ruby Franke Story follows a direct, thorough account of real-life events to highlight a cautionary tale that shows the horrendous effects that manipulation, deceit, and blind faith can have upon someone. Some controversies have arisen as the movie’s version of the story undercuts the adverse effects of Ruby’s vlogging obsession, which according to her eldest child, Shari, was detrimental to her upbringing as well.Â
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Ruby Seek Jodi’s Guidance?
The movie narrative itself is pretty straightforward retelling of the events as they happened, with no major changes except for presenting the lead, Ruby Franke, as a more likeable figure than her real-life counterpart. Ruby is happily married to her loving husband, Kevin, and their family comprises six children, with the eldest one, Shari, already in college. The pious Mormon family lives in a luxurious house in Utah; Kevin is revealed to have a university job, while Ruby runs a parenting vlogging channel named “8 Passengers,” where almost every single moment of their daily lives is showcased to viewers online. The channel has amassed subscribers in the millions while the viewcount has reached billions, and it’s safe to say that this virtual lifestyle marketing has become the family’s major source of income. While not every member of Ruby’s family is as enthusiastic and obsessed about advertising their lives online, Ruby isn’t really asking for their opinions. She is a bit strict when it comes to maintaining this fabricated vlogging regime, which is why when her teenager son, Chad, tries to distance himself from all of this just to have some privacy of his own, she thinks there are some behavioral issues with him instead of considering it to be just a teenager acting like his usual self. Adhering to the recommendations of one of her friends, Ruby decides to seek guidance from Jodi Hildebrandt, a certified counselor—and it all goes downhill for her from that point.
Why Did Ruby Shift Her Focus From Vlogging?
The movie’s version of Jodi is presented as a diabolical, devious person with not a single redeeming quality in her character, and honestly, I think it’s either the movie’s approach of warning the audience that lack of a nuanced characterization becomes so apparent in this case. Jodi makes it her mission to bring ruin to the Franke family from the very beginning, in such a way that you’d assume that there exists some unrevealed history she shared with them. Right off, even before beginning Chad’s counseling sessions, Jodi translates Kevin’s closeness to Ruby as a telltale sign of a sex addict and has Ruby admit him to a therapy session presided by Jodi, where she guilt-trips Kevin and the rest of her male clients regarding having a consensual, healthy sex life with their partners. There are hints shared in the narrative that convey that Jodi didn’t have a good relationship with her ex-husband, and as she is shown to be living alone, there is a possibility hat her loneliness resulted in her developing a problematic mindset regarding family, but nothing justifies wilfully ruining others’ lives. Jodi was quick to exploit Ruby’s devout faith, as she gradually turned her against her husband bit by bit through convincing her that Kevin was a faithless, manipulative person who only sought to control Ruby at every turn. It is strange as to how Ruby, married to her husband for over two decades, could trust him less than a random person she met a week ago despite seemingly having a great conjugal life, but the movie doesn’t really bother explaining. Every ill advice Jodi shared with Ruby had a religious undertone attached to it, which made Ruby’s mind more susceptible to her manipulations.
At this point, Ruby has been paying heed to Jodi’s advice of treating her children more strictly so that a sense of entitlement doesn’t influence their minds at such a young age. To some extent, Ruby was afraid that something like this could happen—after all, the family vlogs were raking in millions of bucks with steady growth, and there was a real chance of the kids taking everything for granted. But the way Ruby decided to go about ‘disciplining’ her kids was simply going overboard. Some of the viewers of her channel noticed the new line of ‘strictness’ Ruby was suddenly maintaining with her children and petitioned a case against her to draw attention to the child protection service—and as a result, Ruby experienced a sudden drop in viewership. Once again, adhering to Jodi’s advice, Ruby decided to focus less on her own vlogging and collaborate with Jodi’s own mental health channel, ‘Connexion.’ Ruby’s subscribers became a major reason for the viewership boost in Jodi’s channel. At one of Jodi’s conferences, where Kevin and Ruby were present as well, the cunning therapist was called out in public as a fraud by one of her former clients, whose life she had ruined by labeling him as a pedophile. But this incident had no effect on Ruby, who blindly believed everything Jodi said.
What Was The Reason For Ruby and Kevin’s Separation?
With the ludicrous excuse of getting plagued by Satan, Jodi began to live at Franke’s residence and started making exceedingly erratic demands, destabilizing the lifestyle of the family, much to Kevin’s disapproval. All this happened with Ruby’s unwavering support and trust in Jodi, and the situation became so bad that Jodi even managed to convince Ruby to have an in-house separation with Kevin. Shari, the eldest of Ruby’s children, distanced herself from her family, and Chad left home after getting a job—it was becoming pretty evident that Jodi had become the chief controller, whose sickening influence was spreading rot in the entire family. Despite knowing how misguided his wife has become, Kevin continued to try to help Ruby and support her by any means, and when Jodi finally left their house, he breathed a sigh of relief. However, it was only the beginning of Kevin’s misery, as later on, still under Jodi’s influence, Ruby asked him to move out—by equating his genuine concerns for her as a reflection of his manipulative, controlling self. Kevin later on lost his university job due to Jodi’s influence, resulting in him earning a bad reputation among his peers, and failed to seek help from his friend, Braxton, as well, who lost his faith after getting entrapped by Jodi’s schemes. Ruby was galloping towards her own doom without having the faintest idea of the terrible fate that awaited her.
What Happened to Ruby at the End?
The final disaster took place when Ruby allowed Jodi the freedom to control her own children as well, as she took her youngest children, Eve and Russell, to Jodi’s place in order to ‘rectify’ their behavior, leaving the house to her teenage daughters, Abby and Julie. By now, Jodi was mooching off of Ruby, drying the Franke family resources. With the vlogging channel discontinued, the only source of income the family turned out to be Kevin, who managed to gather funds somehow despite losing his job—but even now he was not allowed to be near his own family, for reasons he could never even begin to fathom. To call Jodi a home wrecker will be an understatement, but Ruby’s obliviousness was truly unbelievable as well.
Shari returned to her family to witness the absolutely messy situation and decided to call the cops, who couldn’t really help much in this regard. At Jodi’s hands, Eve and Russell went through a world of pain and torture, which were even more heinous in real life compared to the fictionalized account of the movie. Ruby allowed this to happen as Jodi convinced her that she was expelling Satan from their body, and it’s just a small example of how miserably she failed as a mother. Ultimately, a tortured, emaciated Russell was able to escape from Jodi’s residence, and as he was begging for food and water at neighboring doorsteps, child protection service rescued him. Eventually, the authorities arrived at Jodi’s doorstep and rescued Eve from her home. Ruby was arrested as well, and as she arrived at Jodi’s residence, she witnessed Eve to be in a terrible shape, as well as the poor kid being taken outside in a stretcher while wearing an oxygen mask—which is an unimaginable, horrifying sight for any parent. Kevin, who was unaware about any of this, broke down in agony after learning the harrowing situation and later on, rightly decided to divorce Ruby while fighting for the custody of his children who were sent into foster care.
In the movie version, Jodi finally had the realization of how terribly horrid her actions were, and he managed to coerce Jodi into pleading guilty along with her as well. Both of them were sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment, although no punishment can really compensate for their terrible decisions and actions in the least. Jodi is to be blamed for the family’s terrible situation at the end, but Ruby herself allowed everything to happen, which makes her equally guilty. As the movie comes to an end, a dream sequence in Ruby’s mind, showing her celebrating her birthday happily together with her family only highlights further what a life she has squandered away by her own foolishness.Â
