The Pregnancy Pact
| The Pregnancy Pact | |
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 TV poster |
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| Directed by | Rosemary Rodriguez |
| Produced by | Laurence Ducceschi Robert M. Sertner Frank von Zerneck |
| Written by | Pam Davis Teena Booth |
| Starring | Thora Birch Madisen Beaty Camryn Manheim |
| Music by | Richard Marvin |
| Editing by | Tod Feuerman |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Original channel | Lifetime Network |
| Release date | January 23, 2010 |
| Running time | 87 minutes |
The Pregnancy Pact is a 2010 television film directed by Rosemary Rodriguez and stars Thora Birch, Madisen Beaty, and Camryn Manheim. The film is based on a 2008 media circus surrounding teenagers in Gloucester, Massachusetts who allegedly had a pregnancy pact.
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[edit] Plot
The movie begins with Sidney Bloom, (Birch) an old Gloucester High alumna writing a video blog about teen issues. Her main story is a story about teen pregnancy. After finding out that her old high school has increased from ten to eighteen teen pregnancies in the last two months, Sidney decides to go back home and investigate the situation.[1]
When Sidney returns to Gloucester High School, Nurse Kim (Manheim) begins to tell Sidney that there have been over one hundred-fifty pregnancy tests distributed in the past two months and the student pregnancy rate has shot up from ten to eighteen in just eight weeks alone. After hearing this shocking news, Sidney decides to interview local girls from the high school about why they are getting pregnant. When Sidney starts interviewing local high school students, she runs into a group of naive fifteen year old girls who are close friends who have unrealistic ideas about life as teen mothers viewing it as to be something fun to look forward to. Three out of the four are already pregnant with the only one who isn't pregnant being Sara (Beaty). The other girls insist that Sara gets pregnant as soon as possible to complete the circle of them all being pregnant.
A glimpse of each of the girls lives is shown; Karissa, having recently discovered she's pregnant, lives a rather lonely life with a mostly absent mother, another living a life unfit for a child even smoking while pregnant and Sara living a rather normal teen life with loving parents. Nurse Kim desperately wants birth control/contraception to be placed at the school since so many female students are getting pregnant, only to have her efforts shrugged off much to her desperation.
Meanwhile, even though Sara agrees that she’s going to get pregnant, her nervousness is very apparent. After getting permission from her mother, Sara goes to her boyfriend Jesse’s (Ehrich) house to spend some alone time with him. Her father is irritable at his 15 year old daughter spending so much alone time with her boyfriend since teenage boys "aren't so much for keeping their pants on," while Sara's mother is okay with it since Jesse has "good morals," and that she trusts their daughter to have respect for herself. After Sara and Jesse have sex at his place in his bedroom, they start talking about their future together. Jesse believes that he and Sara are going to be together forever. But since Jesse is a year older than Sara, he says that he wants to go away to school with her, get married, and eventually have kids having a life with her. Although Jesse says that he and Sara are going to be together forever, Sara is scared that she’s going to lose him and believes that getting pregnant is the only way to keep the man she desperately loves.
After Sara and Jesse have sex, Sara realizes her period is over a week late. Realizing she might be pregnant, she takes a pregnancy test in the school's girls bathroom. The pregnancy test comes in positive; now all four girls are pregnant. All the girls become extremely excited thinking that now they can all raise their babies together, and all the kids can grow up together just like they did. However, Sara makes the girls promise not to tell anyone fearing everyone else will think she "made it happen," but otherwise is thrilled about having a baby.
The impacts of their actions slowly begin to unravel when Karissa's mother is angry about her daughter's actions since they were struggling financially as it was and her boyfriend leaves her when finding out she is pregnant and a small rumor leaks that she and her friends got pregnant on purpose. Sara's pregnancy soon is next revealed when she is working at her mother's, Lorraine's (Travis), restaurant and when putting a dirty dish of onions runs out onto the deck and throws up at the smell and her mother sees and horrifically realizes her daughter is pregnant.
Once this fact is told, her father, Michael, angrily drags Sara to Jesse's house late at night and furiously reveals to both Jesse and his father that Sara is pregnant and accuses him of taking advantage of her. The consequences further unravel even bigger when Lorraine and Michael loudly and viciously argue about the situation putting blame on one another and causing a major strain in the family. Sidney soon shares a meaningful conversation with Sara about her pregnancy and assuring her that her baby will be very much if she decides to have it; which Sara states she is.
During her next video blog, Sidney bluntly states how the girls are living in "a fantasy land" about having a baby and how they view being pregnant and having a baby "is like a Huggie's commercial," and how they're not even bothering to think about the hardships facing young teen motherhood will bring them like simply finishing high school. Meanwhile, Sara and Loraine's relationship slowly deteriorates as Lorraine is furious at her daughter for not waiting and how she told her it was important to, but Sara shoots back that that was all she ever told her and that she loved Jesse and chose to have sex resulting in an argument between the two before Sara storms off, moments before Times magazine calls for a comment about the town's growing reputation for its high rate in teen pregnancy.
Sara and Jesse soon share a talk about their baby and Jesse tells her how his father is willing to pay to "take care of it," suggesting abortion which Sara refuses to do. She then asks why they just couldn't stay in town and live a life together which he says he didn't want to do wanting to go to college and play baseball and explore the world, but Sara refuses to leave home and they kiss with Sara firmly insisting she loved him more than anything. Soon after this, Lorraine decides to hold a meeting about raising fundraising for more providence of the school's daycare. But Sidney, in attendance, asks why they just don't provide birth contraceptives and lets it slip about Sara's pregnancy to everyone there causing humiliation on Loraine and her family.
Shortly after this, a new story of a pregnancy pact shows up in Time Magazine and spreads throughout the news. Time Magazine states that all of these girls decided to create a pact and get pregnant at the same time so that they would always have a baby who would love them unconditionally. Once the news of the pregnancy pact comes out, their small town is filled with reporters and only causes more stress on Sara and her friends. Sidney soon saves Sara and her one friend from paparazzi and asks them if the pact is in fact true; which in a flashback is confirmed and they make her swear to secrecy.
When hearing about this news, Jesse furiously asks Sara if she was ever a part of the pact. Sara denies being a part of any pact and for a while things seem to be going perfectly, but things get out of hand when Michael, Sara's father, and Jesse get arrested for fighting off a reporter who wouldn't leave their house and Lorraine is resigned from her council due to Sara's pregnancy. Rose soon has her baby and the girls soon get a glimpse of the true hard nature of labour when Rose required 37 stitches due to high excessive tearing during the birth of her baby. And soon Sara sees how her friend's baby's health is dangerously low on top of it.
Things spiral further when Sidney asks Sara if she can do a blind interview and say that the pregnancy pact is true so that it would encourage other girls not to get pregnant and Jesse, along with Sara's mother, walks in overhearing it and Jesse leaves furiously declaring that he wants nothing to do with Sara or the baby.
Now that Sara is forced to raise the baby on her own, she decides that drinking is the only way to get rid of the pain and ends up passed out with her friends who had joined her wanting one last night of partying and is rushed to the hospital. The doctors confirm that the baby is suffering the effects of the alcohol, but luckily is still alive and that Sara better start taking care of herself better for the sake of the baby. Sara soon realizes that what she did will only make matters worse for her condition and slowly begins to make a good recovery along with her relationship with her parents.
It is revealed that Sidney and another worker at the school, Brady, themselves were expecting a baby when Sidney was just 16, but while he wanted it and was excited about being a father, she herself wasn't due to the responsibility of having a child at such a young age. She soon had the baby and gave the baby up for adoption where the agency assured her they found the baby, a boy, a good family. Brady tells her he planned on looking for him "just to make sure he was doing okay," and asks if Sidney wanted to be told if he found him, which she declines saying she made the right choice. Lorraine soon convinces the council to keep her on the board now defending that the school should offer contraceptives to at least the families that want them and how they should get the message about abstinence more broad instead of just simply saying a teenager should wait. Sidney apologizes to Sara about making her feel as though she needed to clean up the mess, but Sara states that if she's going to be a mother she needs to grow up and take responsibility for her own actions and is determined to be a good mother to her baby. She thanks Sidney for being her friend.
During the last few months of Sara’s pregnancy, she sees that Jesse has moved on and has a new girlfriend and has completely forgotten about her and their unborn child, but is content with her life and accepting of her choices and soon, at the end of her pregnancy, has her baby with both her mother and father at her side.
The film ends with Sara happily raising the baby on her own.
[edit] Cast
- Thora Birch as Sidney Bloom
- Madisen Beaty as Sara Dougan
- David Clayton Rogers as Brady Leary
- Max Ehrich as Jesse Moretti
- James McCaffrey as Michael Dougan
- Camryn Manheim as Nurse Kim Daly
- Nancy Travis as Lorraine Dougan
- Michelle DeFraites as Karissa
- Jenna Leigh Hall as Iris
- Christy Carlson Romano as Reporter
- Kelly Heyer as Rose
- Tim Powell as Principal Bachman
[edit] Ratings
According to Women's Health Weekly, The Pregnancy Pact has become the number one rated movie on ad-supported cable in over ten years among women eighteen to thirty four. Also, in addition to the two hundred and fourteen Lifetime Original Movies, the film was ranked as the fourth highest rated movie on Lifetime television.[2] In its first four airings on Saturday and Sunday, The Pregnancy Pact accumulated 23.3 million viewers. Lifetime was the highest rated and most watched ad-supported cable network in Primetime for the movie’s opening weekend.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ "The Pregnancy Pact Movie | Right Cinema". Movies.rightcelebrity.com. 2010-01-24. http://movies.rightcelebrity.com/the-pregnancy-pact-movie/1449. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
- ^ a b "Gale Cengage Product Failure". Find.galegroup.com. http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A218259452&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=lom_emichu&version=1.0. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
