Lifetime adapts 'Memory Keeper's Daughter'

LOS ANGELES, March 6 (UPI) -- Lifetime Television has adapted Kim Edwards' blockbuster novel "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" for the small screen, the U.S. cable TV network said Thursday.

Starring Dermot Mulroney, Emily Watson and Gretchen Mol, the film is to air as a Lifetime Original Movie Event April 12.

The movie was directed by Mick Jackson, whose previous credits include "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Live from Baghdad."

"The Memory Keeper's Daughter" follows two families over a quarter of a century, beginning in 1964 when Dr. David Henry (Mulroney) is forced to deliver his own twin babies during a bad storm.

With his wife Norah (Mol) heavily sedated, David welcomes a healthy son, Paul, and a daughter, Phoebe, who has Down syndrome.

Hoping to spare his wife any heartache in having to care for a child with special needs, David tells Norah their daughter died at birth and orders the nurse, Caroline (Watson), to place Phoebe in an institution.

However, the nurse is unable to abandon the baby girl and secretly decides to raise Phoebe as her own in another city, Lifetime said.