I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Really Surprised!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

"Small Sacrifices" is based on the story of Elizabeth Diane Downs aka Diane Downs who shot her 2 daughters and 1 son in 1983 on a lonely country road while she was driving the kids home from a friend's house late at night. Diane said time and again a strange man with shaggy hair came out of the shadows and demanded her car. When she refused, he shot her sleeping children. In the book by Ann Rule, the kids are named Christie, Cheryl and Danny. In this treatment, they go under the aliases of Karen, Shauna and Robbie. In a way this confuses me because the real names of the kids are in the well-known book and in the TV movie of the same title they go under other names and everyone can find the real names by reading the book! Mild criticism aside, this movie shows another great performance by the late, wonderful Farrah Fawcett! She is so good as the narcissistic, sociopathic Diane Downs who wanted her new boyfried, Lew Lewiston (Ryan O'Neal) to be a father to the kids even though he went the permanent route of ensuring he would never have children by getting a vasectomy. After his rejection, Diane basically loses it and writes him letters proclaiming her love for the married Lew. This was the catalyst for the shooting of the three children by their mom. All the performers are great in this movie! John Shea goes toe-to-toe with Farrah as Frank Joziak the prosecutor and he really cares about her children. A very young Emily Perkins is also wonderful as the traumatized Karen who saw her mother shot her brother and sister and her. She is the one who testifies against her mother because Shauna was shot to death and while Robbie was paralyzed by the bullet, he was too young to testify in court. Next to "The Burning Bed" Farrah has another winner in the TV movie arena!

After watching a 20/20 program about Dianne Downs, they had played a little clip from the movie Small Sacrifices. I was absolutely horrified by this story, I couldn't believe how a mother could so coldly shoot her children and almost without thinking twice about it. But the movie had me intrigued, it's been over a year since Fawcett's tragic death, I heard that this was one of her finest performances so I decided to go ahead and check out the movie. Knowing before what the outcome was going to be, I just hoped that Small Sacrifices wasn't going to romanticize what happened as it was discovered that Dianne's motive was due to wanting her boyfriend to love her back. Hollywood sometimes likes to do damage to real life tragedies, but it turns out that they actually over all did it right this time and showed the true heart break that came from this story but ended up leaving with a little hope.On 19 May 1983, Dianne Downs drove to the hospital with a gunshot wound to her arm and her three bloody children. She claimed that an unknown assailant attempted to carjack her and shot her the children: Karen, Shauna, and Robby. Shauna was dead on arrival at the hospital. Eldest daughter Karen was badly injured, but survived suffering a temporary loss of speech due to a stroke after the shooting, but recovered sufficiently to serve as a witness in court against her mother. Diane's son was paralyzed from the chest down. Downs was eventually tried and convicted of murder, attempted murder, and assault. Downs had started a romance with a man, but he discontinued the relationship as he did not want children. Downs planned to kill her children to be free to pursue this relationship. Going to show the small sacrifices she had to make for the man she loved.I can't imagine what pain Farrah went through to channel this performance for this evil woman, she gave such an incredible performance, I was absolutely amazed. It's so sad she never made it really to the big screen, she was a true talent and beauty. The children actors also did a terrific job, Emily Perkins as Karen was great. I remembered her from the TV Mini Series IT where she pulled in a good performance, I'm surprised that she's not a bigger name now, but who knows the reason behind that. I'm glad they didn't glamour the story up, it was pretty hard to watch. I'm not sure if Small Sacrifices should have been as long as it was and I'm a little disappointed they skipped over Dianne's clumsy videos of her reenacting the carjacking, how she's laughing and giggling while her children are barely holding onto life in the hospital and one's life is lost. I thought that was one of the major keys into her being a suspect of her children's injuries and death. However this was a good movie, I would recommend it if you are interested in murderers or the story of Dianne Downs and her children. Watching the updates on the news to find out that her children are now doing fine and have moved on was wonderful, but so sad that they have to live with the fact that their mother wanted to take their lives for such a petty reason. Farrah gave a great performance and the film was well done and very realistic, not for the faint of heart. Much love and happy thoughts towards her children and the family that they will never have to go through this pain again and that Downs is locked away where she should be.7/10

I was drawn to watching this TV film as seeing the main actors were Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal, I was misguided into thinking it would be a good evening's viewing.I say that, not because either of these actors played their parts badly; indeed, O'Neal only has a rather small part. Having such good actors, and John Shea was rather good, it would have been befitting if the film had moulded itself to a different architecture: the so predictable style for television films made all acting concepts be limited to the same formula. Thus, frequently, Ms. Fawcett tended to overact rather than interpret the complicated characteriology of Diane Downs. The unfolding of the story, the telling of it, and the directing was so glued to preset standardised TV formulas, that there was very little any of the actors or anybody else could have done to add more depth and realism to the job. The end result, therefore, is as disappointing as the predictability: unadventurous and trite and no surprises anywhere to help it along.

Here's TV doing true crime the way it should be done--slowly unfolding plot through character, threading the cops and perps stories together, good courtroom drama--it's spellbinding. Farrah Fawcett is exceptional as Diane Downs, the woman who manages to kill one out of three kids. The two surviving kids are also stand-outs, especially the small daughter who must choose whether or not to testify against the monstrously narcissistic Downs. John Shea is also good as the D.A. A must-see for crime buffs.