Review of Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story on Lifetime

Remember the old days when prime time TV movies ordinary people doing extraordinary things?  Well, the new Lifetime Original Movie Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story premiering Monday, January   31, at 9 pm (ET/PT) powerfully highlights a mother’s power to overcome the time and space dividing her from her son.  The movie stars some of my favorite actors: Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Terry O’Quinn (Lost) and Beverly Todd (Crash) and is based on a dramatic true story of Tiffany Rubin’s (Henson) daring 2008 rescue of her six-year-old son, Kobe, after he was abducted by his biological father and taken from his home in Queens, New York, all the way to Seoul, South Korea.   To connect the movie to the true story, immediately following the movie at 11 PM ET/PT, Lifetime will premiere an all-new hour-long documentary, Beyond the Headlines: The Tiffany Rubin Story.

Taken From Me combines today’s production values with that inspiring “I am Woman, Hear me Roar” plot line in which nothing can keep a mother from her baby.  In particular, Taraji Henson is great as Rubin who shuttles between despair and hope as she, with the help of O’Quinn’s likeable character, manages to pull her child out of South Korea without invoking international ire.  What I enjoyed most about the movie was the relationship between the Rubin character and her mother—the way they challenged each other before Kobe’s kidnapping and then supported each other during the family crisis.  The rescue itself was harrowing, made all the more frightening because of the reality of this kind of custodial struggle, and I give the director props for highlighting that tension.  All in all,  watching Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story made for a satisfying evening.  Now that I’ve seen the movie which will premiere nationally on Monday, January   31, at 9 pm (ET/PT), I’m looking forward to the documentary, Beyond the Headlines: The Tiffany Rubin Story, immediately following it.

I did not receive compensation for this post although I did receive a DVD in order to facilitate this review.  Any and all opinions are mine.