Changed
Gail (Park Overall) and her ex Ted (Carl Marotte) don't get on especially now that Gail has a new man in her life Eddie (Jason Beghe - Home Alone 4) but reluctantly she allows Ted take their son Andrew (Seth Adkins) for the weekend. But when Ted doesn't return she starts to panic and calls the police. But nothing seems to be happening and months and years go by with out her seeing either Andrew or her ex Ted. Then out of the blue Ted calls and whilst leading them on a merry dance sending them from one place to the next sends Andrew home, dirty and in a traumatised state.
I could say "Taming Andrew" is just another TV movie about a kidnapped child as there have been a few over the years, there have even been movies where the person taking the child is the estranged father. But whilst "Taming Andrew" like these other movies deals with the emotion of a mother missing their child and their fight to get them back the story develops in a different way. What it does is show the difficulty that comes from when a child is returned and has changed in those years especially in this case as Andrew was abused making him a traumatised child.
Now this focus on the traumatised Andrew is hard hitting especially in the almost animalistic behaviour which Andrew portrays to start with. But as well as seeing how badly Andrew has been affected by 5 years of abuse living with his father we also see how Gail and Eddie has to deal with this unexpected situation. There is a lot of small scenes in this movie which speaks volumes from an emotional scene where Andrew thinks he sees his father and it causes him to freak out to trying to bring Andrew back up to the educational level that he should be.
Now the knock out performance in "Taming Andrew" comes from Seth Adkins as Andrew and the minute we lay eyes on him as he climbs off of a bus you can see what a bad way he is in, the life knocked out of him. It's not just the look because he speaks volumes through his mannerisms, the way he hides in the well between car seats, the look of pain in his eyes as he stares through people it is first rate and moving. That isn't to say the other performances are poor Park Overall as Gail and Jason Beghe as Eddie are just as good as they come to terms with how traumatised Andrew is and what that means to their family.
What this all boils down to is that "Taming Andrew" is a powerful movie which looks at a different aspect of the kidnapped child scenario. The power comes from an amazing performance from Seth Adkins whose portrayal of the traumatized Andrew is staggering.
