Starring Vanessa Hudgens and James Earl Jones, “Gimme Shelter” is based on the true-life story of a young woman who finds hope and healing at a shelter for pregnant, homeless teens. This film opened in theaters today, and is playing at the Palisades Center.

The home in the movie is based on the Several Sources Shelters, founded by Kathy DiFiore in Ramsey, NJ, which has provided help to thousands of needy families, pregnant teens, and homeless women.

Our website’s guest blogger, Sean Miller, saw a special screening of this movie earlier this month.  Here is his review:

“Gimme Shelter”

Guest blogger Sean Miller

This captivating movie opens with a symbolic scene as a young adolescent named Apple anxiously cuts her hair in a bathroom as she plans to break away from her dire surroundings.

Apple lives with her mother, June, and is constantly faced with the grim realities of street life, a vicious cycle of drugs and prostitution that only leads to a dead end of despair.

To separate herself from this bleak fate, April knows that she must break away from her mother. And the hope that allows her to dream of starting a new life is enclosed in a letter she received from her biological father many, many years ago.

So Apple sets out to find her absent father who was never involved in her life, and to find answers to questions that have filled her with anger and resentment as she desperately sought to find her identity in a world that let her down.

But now, Tom, Apple’s father, has turned the chapter on his own life and is an affluent, highly successful Wall Street businessman. He lives with his wife, Stephanie, and their children in their lavish mansion – unaware that his peaceful, stable existence will soon be shaken by an unexpected visitor — Apple!  Continue reading →