A Lifetime movie that’s had a considerable amount of effort put into it is a rarity. The Girl with No Name, directed by Jeff Hare, is just that. It is still a Lifetime movie, though, and it comes with the usual hallmarks of it: corny acting, animated characters, a quick resolution, and a very amateurish plot. What works here is the twists and turns, and in this article we’re mainly going to discuss that.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the movie?
Crime podcast host Fiona Michelson finds herself trapped in a basement. She’s obviously been abducted, and we need to know how (and why) that happened. So we cut to a week earlier, as we see Fiona Michelson returning to her hometown to celebrate her parents, Barry and Cecily’s fortieth anniversary. The party’s at the Holt Vineyard hotel, whose owner, Marcus, warmly welcomes them. From the very beginning it seems like this guy is up to no good (and since it’s Lifetime, you know you’re right). His wife Emily seems harmless, though; in fact, she turns out to be a huge fan of Fiona. Our lead girl also meets her best friend Daisy, who now works at the Holt Vineyard. Thanks to Daisy’s insistence, Fiona—who’s conveniently single as she has no time for romance—takes a chance on her former flame Joseph, who’s now a doctor. Joseph and Fiona used to be star-crossed lovers, but they didn’t happen because she left town. The story could have done away with the romance, but I understand Lifetime’s need to cater to all kinds of audiences.
Anyway, former police chief Rafael, who was Fiona’s (sort of) mentor, is also at the party, who tells her about this cold case of the girl with no name. Years ago, a dead body was found in the town, and nobody ever knew whom it belonged to. There was no missing person report, and no one came forward with any substantial information. The case remained unsolved, but now Rafael is on to something, and he wants Fiona to help. He does warn that some people might not like that, but Fiona is quite fearless, and she would do anything to discover the truth. So they decide to meet at Rafael’s place the next morning. Sadly, that doesn’t happen, as Rafael gets a visit from someone that night, and he doesn’t look pleased with whoever that is, and the next morning Fiona finds his dead body. She also notices someone running into the woods. Present sheriff Walker comes to the scene, but he concludes that Rafael had a heart attack. Obviously that can’t be true, and Walker seems to be shady as hell as well.
What really happened at the Holt’s Vineyard?
It doesn’t take long for Fiona to realize that the Holts might be pillars of the community, but they’re not exactly clean. Paying a visit to Vicki Jane, who lives in the trailer park, only strengthens her belief. Vicki was the one who found the girl with no name and reported it to the police. She also worked at the vineyard but eventually got fired. However, she refuses to say more than that to Fiona and rudely shuts the door on her. That obviously can’t stop Fiona from looking into the matter. So when she goes to have lunch with Marcus and Emily, she uses the oldest trick in the book—asking where the bathroom is and then sneaking into Marcus’ office. And she quickly finds the necessary case file that practically incriminates Marcus’ dead father, Michael Holt. He was obviously a predator who used to abuse many young women who came to work for him. Vicki was one of the few who decided to stand up against the tyrant and got thrown away.
Marcus is not his father, though, but he is also no good. He is cheating on Emily with Daisy, planning to sell the vineyard and run away without giving her wife anything (thanks to a pretty solid prenup), and now that Fiona is digging into the past, she has become an obstacle in his path. So he does everything to stop Fiona—from putting a tracker in her bag to breaking into her house to spiking her food so that she has an anaphylactic attack (not to mention he steals the epipen) to planting fake drugs in her car so that the police arrest her, and Walker can steal the files back.
Fiona’s only mistake is probably trusting Daisy blindly, which is the reason for her ending up in the root cellar. She’s soon rescued as Emily hears her cries for help (because Daisy and Marcus are idiotic enough to keep her right at the Holt house). Once Marcus realizes he can’t win, he chases after Fiona and Emily. Fiona gets away thanks to Vicki, but Emily is taken and held at the root cellar (seriously, these villains don’t have another place to keep people?). All that’s left is Fiona going to the police station and asking Deputy Wanda to do the right thing. And unlike Walker, she is not in Holt’s pocket, so she does exactly that. Walker also has a conscience and admits that he only did this to secure financial help for the police station. Emily is freed, and Marcus and Daisy are arrested, as they should be.
Who was the girl with no name?
Just when you are thinking whether the film has forgotten about its title, The Girl with No Name drops the biggest twist on you. Thanks to doctor Joseph running a DNA test on a bone sample from the cold case, it is revealed that the girl with no name was Fiona’s older sister. Barry is shocked and has no idea, but Cecily runs away with the evidence. She doesn’t go far, though, as Fiona, Barry, and Joseph find her at Rose’s (that’s what her name was) grave, planning to burn all the evidence so that her secret doesn’t get out. Cecily reveals that she used to live in the trailer park, and upon getting a job at Holt’s Vineyard, she dreamed of a better life. When she got pregnant with Michael’s baby, they paid her off to keep quiet and eventually get away and start a new life. The baby soon died, and she had no choice but to take the deal. I don’t understand why she would come back to the town after all this, but clearly the director wanted the story to take this direction only. Cecily also confesses that she was the one Fiona saw running away from Rafael’s place as she went there to check if he had anything that puts her in a difficult position. All that said, Cecily is still a victim, and Fiona has managed to talk her out of destroying the evidence. Because truth is something that always sets you free, that’s the lesson we get at the end of the movie. In true Lifetime manner, it ends with Fiona, Joseph, Barry, and Cecily dining together with our podcaster announcing the news of her coming back to town and settling down. I wish my life was as simple as these Lifetime characters, just saying!
