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‘Custody’: Lifetime TV Movie With Viola Davis, One Parent’s True Story Similar

By Traciy Reyes
Published on: 05:12 PST, Mar 3, 2017

Custody, starring actress Viola Davis, will air on Lifetime tomorrow night. Custody is about a hardworking New York City mother who is accused of child abuse. Viola Davis plays the hard-nosed judge who presides over the case. This latest Lifetime movie is directed and based on a screenplay written by James Lapine. It’s not said to be based on a true story, but is similar to one parent’s true story. Custody, which was originally released at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, stars Viola Davis, Hayden Panettiere, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ellen Burstyn, and Tony Shalhoub, according to Variety.

Movie Synopsis For Custody On Lifetime

Sara Diaz is a single mother who is trying to juggle a job in a sweaty NYC factory while providing financial support for her three children. Sara loves her kids, but sometimes, life can be stressful trying to keep up with it all. However, after she is accused of abusing one of her children, her stress level skyrockets.

It all starts with a visit from a social worker from New York City’s Child Protective Services, who has questions about the mysterious cut on her son’s face. To Sara, it isn’t mysterious at all. Her son fell. That’s the story.

What Sara will soon find out is that this is far from over. Sara’s three children are snatched from her home as she is accused of abusing them and being an unfit parent.

Shocked by the false allegations, Sara fights back, often lashing out in court, as her lawyer, a recent college grad, tries to keep her in control so she won’t alienate the judge.

For Judge Martha Schulman, this case is serious, and so are the allegations. The judge also warns Sara that it is illegal to lie in court. But Sara pleads with the courts and tells them that she’s not lying, and that it is all a misunderstanding that seems to be evolving into a legal nightmare.

She would never hurt her children, and now the judge has to weigh whose telling the truth. What kind of case does she have here? Was it a fall? Is Sara a cruel and unfit mother who has harmed her child, or is she an overwhelmed, but good mother who has made a terrible mistake?

Lifetime Television’s Custody: A Moving Legal Drama

Custody is a gripping courtroom drama that tells the story of three women, the judge who is struggling with which decision to make, the female attorney who is fighting for the rights of her client, and the mother who is on the cusp of losing the loves of her life– her three kids.

Packed with emotional and incredible acting, Lifetime’s Custody is not a movie you need to miss. Viewers will get an inside view of what it’s like to get tangled up with Child Protective Services and local family courts. The consequences can be dire and long-lasting, despite their goal of protecting the children at all costs.

  • Custody isn’t based on a true story. But it certainly has something in common with the case of Nicky and Mark Webster. The couple had three children who were taken away after they took their young son to the doctor for symptoms of the common cold. Their lives changed forever after they were accused of child abuse when the doctor found a fracture on the son’s ankle. It turned out not to be true. The couple was falsely and wrongly accused. You can read more about their ordeal at the Daily Mail.

Though some accusations of child abuse turn out not to be legitimate, many cases are. Here are a few statistics, as listed by National Children’s Alliance.

  • Nearly 700,000 children are abused in the U.S annually….
  • CPS protects more than 3 million children….
  • The youngest children were most vulnerable to maltreatment….
  • Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment….
  • About four out of five abusers are the victims’ parents.

According to Wave Newspapers, Custody is produced by Lucky Monkey Pictures, Mustard & Co, and JuVee Productions in association with Green-Light International and Washington Square Films. Watch it this Saturday, March 4, at 8/7 p.m. Central on Lifetime.

[Featured Image by Lifetime Television]

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