The Surrogacy Trap:

Greetings, commies!

October is a pregnancy and newborn loss awareness month, so it only makes sense that I should review a movie that touches upon this sensitive. The affected audiences would benefit from a realistic depicture of the surrogacy process. Instead, Lifetime came up with an implausible wannabe thriller full of legal and logistical loopholes. The writers of The Surrogacy Trap did not do their homework.  

Synopsis:

After losing hope of conceiving a child on their own, Christy and Mitch turn to surrogacy in hopes of creating the perfect family. However, their confidence is quickly shaken when they discover that the young woman might not be as perfect as they first thought.

My thoughts:

I realize that Lifetime doesn't always aim for accuracy, but this movie contains a few pretty gross factual errors. I am pretty sure it's a uniform rule that the surrogate must have at least one biological child - for good reasons. She needs to prove that she is at least capable of carrying a pregnancy through. Second, they really prefer women who are "done" having their own children, as surrogacy can potentially lead to infertility.

The couple comes across as unsympathetic and shallow, not to mention hypocritical, as they reject a more experienced surrogate for using the program as her main source of income and serving as a "professional incubator". Well, duh! What do they think a surrogate is? They wanted to a a "virginal" and altruistic surrogate who also looks like a supermodel?

Nobody specifies what sources of income Mallory has, yet she is able to afford a pretty fancy apartment. But that's to be expected in most TV productions. People live in apartments they would never afford in real life.

The cops look extremely naive and slow-witted. There were a few pretty close calls. Amazing how one psycho can totally outsmart the police department.

So, if you want to view this movie was a psycho fantasy, it you will be satisfied. But if you know the specifics of surrogacy, you will be rolling your eyes at the inaccuracies.