We watched Lifetime’s movie on Sherri Papini’s fake kidnapping. Here’s what it got right

Sherri Papini’s wild faux-kidnapping saga is finally getting the treatment for which it was always destined: a Lifetime movie.

“Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini” premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday on Lifetime. It’s an 87-minute dramatic rendering of how Papini disappeared from her Redding home in November 2016, told through the channel’s campy lens.

“Hoax” stars Jaime King, a veteran actress perhaps best known for starring on The CW show “Hart of Dixie,” as Papini. Papini’s now-ex-husband Keith is played by Matt Hamilton, who had a supporting role in the TV adaptation of “Turner and Hooch.”

Papini was a 34-year-old mother of two whose disappearance reverberated throughout Northern California and generated national headlines. She reappeared three weeks later near Interstate 5 in Yolo County, sporting a broken nose, chopped-off hair and a Bible verse branded on her right shoulder.

She claimed she had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Hispanic women, who allegedly kept her chained in captivity.

Spoiler alert: She wasn’t actually taken. Instead, Papini visited ex-boyfriend James Reyes in Orange County. Eventually, she decided she missed her two young children too much to carry on, and had Reyes drop her off in Yolo County.

If this all sounds like a bootleg version of “Gone Girl,” well, that’s kind of how it plays on screen as well. Except in this case, the girl got caught in her lie.

FBI agents pieced together inconsistencies, collected Reyes’ DNA and arrested Papini in March 2022. She pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and mail fraud in April, having collected Social Security and California Victim Compensation Board benefits intended for actual sufferers.

A federal judge in Sacramento sentenced her to 18 months in prison followed by three years probation and ordered her to pay $309,902 in restitution, a punishment that went well beyond even what the prosecutors were seeking.

The movie opens with Papini’s roadside rescue, followed by a flashback to simpler times: a sex scene with her husband Keith, executed in an all-white bedroom with all the passion of a couple waiting in line at the DMV. By the looks of it, the flame is clearly gone for the couple.

From there, the woman who real-life Keith dubbed “Super Mom” goes about rescuing kids from a bounce house fiasco, meticulously prepping lunches for school, donating to a local shelter — the perfect small-town gal who makes friends wonder how she stays so put-together.

“How do you do it?” a friend asks Papini. “Do what?” she replies.

“Always look so perfect,” the friend answers.

“Oh no, I’m not perfect,” Papini says.

The wheels soon come off.

Sherri Papini disappears

Papini disappears to the home of her ex-boyfriend Reyes, who must have been the only real-life character not to sign a release form, given that he’s called “Chris” on screen. Meanwhile, husband Keith struggles to balance domestic responsibilities, work and the search for his wife.

Cabin fever and longing for her kids eventually send Papini back up north on Thanksgiving, where initial waves of relief eventually give way to suspicion. The film’s Detective Ollie Rollins of the Redding Police Department goes from searching for Papini to searching for the truth.

Papini desperately holds onto her “super mom” image, even bringing homemade cookies to a police interview. Eventually, though, her friends and husband begin to question inconsistencies in her story, leading to her arrest.

Papini’s disappearance and subsequent reappearance landed her in jail, but they didn’t need to. Affairs aren’t illegal, as Rollins told Chris in “Hoax”: his and Papini’s only became public business because of her manner of disappearance and the taxpayer funds misused in rescue efforts and compensation.

Fact or fiction?

Hollywood depictions of real-life situations are bound to take some liberties, and unsurprisingly, “Hoax” wasn’t entirely truthful in its portrayals. But give Lifetime some credit for the details along the way.

Wrong: It was the FBI, not the Redding Police Department, that predominantly investigated Papini’s case, and Rollins is a fictitious person.

Wrong: Tight finances were depicted as a secret underlying pressure for the TV Papinis, but there’s no evidence that played a role in real-life Sherri’s disappearance.

Right: When the movie version of Keith finds Sherri’s phone abandoned midway through her run, strands of her hair are still attached to her earbuds, just as it happened.

Right: Movie Keith’s subsequent 911 call accurately reflects the real-life police transcript, and Papini’s admission of guilt near the end is an excerpt from what she actually said in court.

Not-exactly-right: The lead investigator, Rollins, is a Black woman and repeatedly brings up how the local Latino community has been under attack since Papini described her captors as Hispanic women. While majority-white Redding’s Latino population did face discrimination as a result of Papini’s lies, the police response appears overemphasized in “Hoax.”

Right: The real-life Papini returned looking battered because Reyes had flung hockey pucks at her, and Chris does the same in “Hoax” despite his discomfort at doing so.

Right: Lies Papini told investigators, her old posts on a white supremacist blog, a previous false police report filed against her mother and her arrest scene outside her kids’ piano lessons were all portrayed relatively accurately.

Wrong: “Hoax” ends with Papini in her first therapy session, already sentenced to her jail time and fine. In reality, she underwent therapy during the years between her reappearance and subsequent arrest, and a therapist had diagnosed her with acute PTSD.

Wrong: Papini was sentenced at the 16-story Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse in downtown Sacramento, not whatever high school auditorium “Hoax” filmed. National audiences won’t care, but it matters to us!

Who knows: Did Reyes/Chris really have a shrine dedicated to Papini in the living room when she arrived at his Orange County home? It’s possible, but seems a little over-the-top.

Who cares: Papini is “super mom” because she saves her kids from a deflating bounce house? Seems the least of her problems, really.

Watch party, anyone?

So, should you spend 87 minutes (plus commercials) watching a poorly-acted telling of the Sherri Papini saga at 8 p.m. this Saturday? Sure, if it’s your kind of thing!

It’s a classic Lifetime guilty pleasure watch, the kind that begs for a glass of Chardonnay on the rocks. Viewers are required to put their brain cells on ice as well, of course, but that’s half the fun.

“Hoax” isn’t the first Papini dramatization to hit the screen. “Dateline” immediately dedicated an episode to Papini after her guilty plea in April, and Oxygen True Crime debuted “Sherri Papini: Lies, Lies and More Lies” in December.

As for the real Papini? She’s currently being held at a medium-security federal prison in Victorville (San Bernardino County), from which she’s scheduled to be released in 2024.

This story was originally published January 27, 2023 at 5:00 AM.