This movie originally aired on television when I was in high school. I remember how much of an impression it made on me. It's a story about courage and beating the odds; a theme found in some of the best TV movies from the 1980s.
At this point Elizabeth Montgomery had already played an axe murderess, a western outlaw, a blind woman, and other challenging dramatic roles. But this time the challenge was even more daunting- she was portraying Abigail Foster, a woman who had been in a coma for two decades then woke up one day in a mostly vegetative state.
In the first few scenes she is a teenage cheerleader in the sixties, dating the quarterback. She's an all-American girl with her whole life ahead of her. But a virus causes Abigail to collapse one day and something happens to her brain, rendering her comatose. When she finally regains consciousness twenty years later everything's changed. Despite these circumstances her mother (Dorothy McGuire) is convinced Abigail can enjoy life as it was meant to be lived.
The mother believes new drugs and therapies will enable Abigail to become a fully functioning person. And gradually, this is what happens. Not sure how realistic the story is from a medical standpoint, but it makes for compelling drama. Miss Montgomery's character faces enormous odds and by the time the movie ends, she has overcome much of the adversity she faces.
An interesting twist the writers have added is that while Abigail was comatose her sister (Karen Grassle) married the football quarterback. So during the recovery phase, she is involved in a bit of a triangle with the sister and the guy who is now Abigail's brother-in-law.
Soapy elements aside, the drama manages to maintain its sense of balance and keeps the focus on the main character's journey. Especially what it is like to readjust to a world that went on without her. On that level alone, it's a great "what if this happened to someone" scenario.
Elizabeth Montgomery's acting skill comes through when she has to demonstrate involuntary muscle reflexives. Also when the character learns to communicate again. In the same way she used powerful facial expressions in the Lizzie Borden movie, she conveys a lot with her eyes in this story. Particularly during the parts where she is taking in her "new" surroundings and looking at how much it means to her mother and sister for her to either recover or die.
One scene where the sister begs her to give up and let them be free of her as a burden is very memorable. And there's another great scene when Abigail has become coherent, looks into a mirror and realizes she is no longer a teen.
To prevent things from getting too serious, the scriptwriters sprinkle the scenes with light touches. It's amusing to see a woman now in her late 30s thinking she's still 18 (since in her mind she hadn't really matured). During one sequence she goes back to high school, but classes in 1985 are a lot different than classes were in 1965. There's a brief Samantha Stephens moment when she makes a humorous face while encountering her first Commodore 64 computer.
Eventually Abigail reaches the point where she would have been had the coma not happened. Losing the old boyfriend to her sister turns out to have its advantages when a handsome gym teacher (James Naughton) falls for her and she gets a chance at an adult romance.
As an actress, this was probably one of Montgomery's more challenging roles. The casting is perfect. She and Dorothy McGuire, who also appeared with her in AMOS, do seem like mother and daughter. And Karen Grassle resembles them enough to be convincing as the sister. Their scenes give us character-driven moments that provide a sense of intimacy and realism. They don't go overboard with what could easily have been an outlandish situation. It's done simply, showing us the struggles and triumphs that occur within one family as they very literally deal with a generation gap.
