I Was Octomom: The Natalie Suleman Story Blames It on The Hormones In Shallow Dive into Advanced Infamy

Critic’s Ranking: 2.7 / 5.0

2.7

There comes a degree throughout I Was Octomom: The Natalie Suleman Story the place the titular lady wholly blames her misunderstandings and mishaps on her hormones.

It’s a constant sample all through the movie, as her story fixates extra on showcasing what it was like for Natalie throughout the peak of the Octomom craze fairly than attempting to dispel a few of the worst that derived from that period.

The movie sums up a lot of Natalie’s story with a shrug: “I used to be hormonal.” It’s simple to presume that in stating that, one is skirting round accountability, however in the identical breath, it’s as if Natalie is just taking her criticisms to the chin.

Octomom Controversy Touched on Scorching Button Points

The Octomom craze was out of this world. Many heralded this lady within the Infamy Corridor of Fame in a single day as a result of all the pieces she embodied was the fruits of issues Individuals, particularly, typically critique.

She was a wonderful, single daughter of immigrants and a mom of 14. We all know how a lot America likes to hate girls and dictate their decisions.

It’s no surprise many criticized her for being simply pro-life sufficient to carry eight new infants into the world when she already had six of her personal alone.

Naturally, as a toddler of immigrants, there was the xenophobic part of individuals assuming she was securing her spot within the nation with sufficient anchor infants to type three basketball groups.

Natalie was in a rock-and-a-hard place. If she continued to remain at dwelling along with her kids, accumulate incapacity checks, and even sniff within the course of presidency funding, she can be instantly thought of a mooch who drains the system and lives off “hard-earning taxpayer {dollars}” to help her brood of kids.

Natalie Couldn’t Win in This State of affairs Enjoying Into Each Poor Perceptions of Motherhood

Nonetheless, as most working moms know, if she went to work to help these kids, she was negligent and didn’t give them the eye they deserved.

Moreover, if she pursued work within the type of capitalizing off her infamy by way of tv look offers or that godforsaken intercourse work, properly, throw her within the chair!

The conflicting messages that all the time surrounded Octomom have been fascinating, notably as a result of they showcased how folks’s values and morals are such a sliding scale and mishmash of issues that they’ll’t even absolutely undergo themselves.

Octomom managed to garner the ire of Professional-life and Professional-choice folks.

The life people satirically casting dying threats at her selfishness endangering the lives of kids (sure, I do know, that doesn’t make sense laid out, proper?) whereas the pro-choice folks couldn’t settle for that her alternative concerned bringing so many kids into the world whom she couldn’t afford to handle on the time and falling sufferer to the spectacle of media.

Natalie’s Narration of Her Personal Story Does Little to Present Context (Shockingly)

Octomom’s story is definitely a kind of polarizing tales that pushes in any respect these teams and stances and challenges the positions, however Lifetime’s model of this story barely scratches the floor of her infamy and why she grew to become a sensation to discover how she felt amid all of that.

Natalie’s narration of her personal movie is a automobile so as to add extra context to all the pieces. Nonetheless, her choices really feel extra like she’s mildly making her case however with out substantial context.

No matter the place you fell on the spectrum concerning Octomom, you’ll probably stroll away from this story feeling as if I don’t know. This lady is just a flawed human who desperately needed and wanted love and located that in her kids however acquired in over her head.

The movie glosses over the foundation of lots of her points. I’d even go so far as to say that flashback references to this lonely childhood she had, and even her preliminary choice to have kids at such a younger age, ensuing within the first six, would’ve been an effective way of filling in a few of the gaps and including extra context.

As an alternative, we get Natalie, performed extremely properly by Kristen Lee Gutoskie, as this seemingly naive, anxious, perpetually flustered lady who retains by accident making questionable selections.

I Was Octomom Outlines Natalie as Sufferer of Circumstance with Little Context on Controversy

Her physician was unsuitable for permitting her to signal medical documentation whereas nonetheless drugged, and the hospital employees have been vile for promoting her data to tabloids. PR principally protected the hospital’s picture, whereas her leisure lawyer or supervisor felt an excessive amount of warmth and needed to give up.

She was creating wealth, however not sufficient to help herself, and nobody was serving to her with enterprise.

Once more, outlining this feels like I’m bemoaning the movie for making Natalie a perpetual sufferer of circumstance, but it surely’s not a lot that each one of these items weren’t true or have been damaging; they’re simply so thinly coated with out nuance.

Honestly, after watching the movie, I nonetheless can’t say that I’ve any higher perception into Natalie. The little we study her motivations or what formed her and led to her touchdown on this place is so shallow that it’s laborious to carry onto anybody factor and make it stick.

She was a lonely little one, and her childhood was dysfunctional, however we don’t know in what approach. Natalie had a strained relationship along with her mom. Nonetheless, it didn’t really feel not like any advanced mom/daughter dynamic, particularly once they have been each elevating kids at completely different occasions and underneath completely different cultures.

Natalie alludes to how her mom’s PTSD and experiences surviving a WWII encampment could have formed her, but it surely simply hangs there and by no means goes wherever.

I Was Octomom Struggles Balancing Accountablity and Sympathy

Maybe it was only a approach of highlighting that Natalie was a really sensible, vivid lady with a real curiosity in sociology and psychology, even when she concurrently lacked understanding or the flexibility to handle her personal points concerning nervousness, impulsivity, and different issues.

I Was Octomom, tries to stability holding Natalie accountable whereas additionally garnering sympathy for her, and I don’t have any robust emotions concerning the state of affairs both approach.

She acknowledges that she was egocentric and reckless. Nonetheless, she doesn’t remorse her kids, has a childhood backstory to justify her sentiments, and sums up so lots of her decisions throughout that particular timeframe to her being hormonal, sleep-deprived, anxious, post-partum, or affected by PTSD.

However additionally they gloss over a few of the inside workings of how she transferred her loneliness and points onto her kids when she had a brood of them, and so they didn’t discover how too many kids in a hospital can go away many feeling as if their emotional wants aren’t met or end in different id points.

The main target was extra on how Natalie was a terrific, resilient mom who defied the percentages given her circumstances and efficiently raised pleased, wholesome, well-adjusted kids with out difficulty. On the finish of it, we will conclude that she genuinely beloved all of her kids, and did all the pieces for them.

However we’re additionally balancing that towards the undue burden she locations on these round her. Frankly, I discovered her mom, Angela, to be probably the most sympathetic on this piece.

I Was Octomom Barely Touches on Natalie’s Selfishness in Relation To Her Village

It takes a village to boost kids, and Natalie went headlong into repeatedly having so many kids after which counting on her village to help her.

What sucks about that’s that nobody anticipates being liable for that many kids without delay, particularly once they aren’t yours. Angela’s frustrations have been legitimate, because it appeared like Natalie was so fixated on filling some void that she didn’t take into consideration the impact she had on everybody round her.

Natalie’s mom and finest good friend have been saints for the help they supplied, and whereas there was fixed media in every single place, Natalie was falling aside and overwhelmed, and so they have been battling their very own points.

In some methods, they emerge because the story’s heroes, however solely Angela is handled as such because the movie nears conclusion and Natalie and Angela make peace with each other forward of Angela’s tragic dying.

Maybe Lifetime anticipates the docuseries particular that includes Natalie Suleman to fill within the blanks or be the true draw right here. And if that’s the case, that’s completely nice.

Nonetheless, to discover the human facet of Octomom, the movie barely scratches the floor. It leaves her feeling like many empty tropes cobbled collectively with out making us really feel like we truly acquired to know or perceive her, good, dangerous, or ugly.

How did you are feeling concerning the movie Lifetime Fanatics?

Watch I Was Octomom On-line

TV Fanatic is looking for passionate writers to share their voices throughout numerous article sorts. Assume you’ve what it takes to be a TV Fanatic? Click on right here for extra data and subsequent steps.