Hello Sister, Goodbye Life

Olivia Martin (Lacey Chabert) is a normal 21 year old college girl dating her teaching assistant Joe. He's moving to Italy to study and asks her to join him. She is estranged from her father who divorced her mom Barbara (Wendie Malick), and remarried to Alicia. He and Alicia have bratty daughter Celia (Sammi Hanratty). When her father and Alicia are killed, Olivia is left as Celia's guardian. She reluctantly accepts the responsibility from her father's friend and the executor of the estate Dennis Klein (David Ramsey).

This was shown on ABC Family and has the expected production qualities. The story is very basic. It's very simple and slow at times. The writing is nothing special. The big initial draw is Lacey Chabert. Little Sammi Hanratty is a little girl with big acting and good range. They have a good melodramatic relationship. It's a family movie that isn't too sappy. It could have helped if Olivia has a wacky comedic best friend to add some jokes. Wendie Malick tries to fill that role but the mother can't be the comedic sidekick.