History Film / SmugglingInSuburbia

* SleekHighRiseApartment: We don't really see the view, but Danny lives in a huge, ultra-cool New York loft.

''Smuggling in Suburbia'' is a 2019 Creator/{{Lifetime}} [[LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek Movie of the Week]] TeenDrama[=/=]CrimeDrama, directed by Doug Campbell and written by Robert Ingraham (with a story by Campbell).

** Joanie, who consideres herself MIT material, can't pick up on the blaring hints that she's transporting something illegal. She actually drops the ball at a crucial point, but only after her mom has to make the obvious point that companies like Amazon can ship camera lenses quickly and safely and thus there's no need for couriers to travel with them. But she picks the ball up again constantly because LoveMakesYouDumb.

* SuspiciousSpending: Georgia finds it a little odd that Joanie is getting paid in cash, and later that complete strangers are donating tens of thousands of dollars to crowdfund Peter's surgery. It's actually Joanie donating her cut of the smuggling money under assumed names.

* HiddenDepths: Danny, the evil smuggling mastermind, is shown playing a grand piano at one point.

* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: When Georgia first goes to the police to ask about Danny, she's most likely assuming that Joanie is involved in drug smuggling, or, since this is Lifetime, sex trafficking. It turns out it's something far more sinister.

Joanie Whittaker (Monroe Cline) is a high school senior in California. She's invited to a party by her ultra-glam classmates Annabel (Shelby Yardley) and Sharnae (Juliana Destefano), where she meets Danny Kellog (Bret Green), a slightly older guy, and learns why Annabel and Sharnae always have such nice clothes and so much money to throw around: they work for Danny delivering specialized lenses and cameras to high-end photographers all over the country. Joanie accepts an offer to join them as a courier. The "lenses" story is a front: the girls are actually trafficking [[Film/BloodDiamond illegal diamonds smuggled in from Africa]]. While her mother Georgia (Darlene Vogel) becomes concerned when Joanie starts taking unannounced weekend trips to places like New York and Chicago, Joanie asserts her independence. Eventually Joanie figures out the truth and threatens to quit, but two things keep her in the smuggling business: her younger brother Peter (Zander Grable) is diagnosed with cancer and needs an expensive operation, and she falls in love with Danny's business partner Tucker (Cole Reinhardt).

* FauxAffablyEvil: Danny can be charming and pleasant when it suits his purposes, but he also has an ruthless AxCrazy side, and isn't above killing his associates to prove a point.

** Georgia is also more flawed than a Lifetime Concerned Mother would usually be. On one hand she's a MamaBear (though she sometimes wanders into MyBelovedSmother land). But she's also way too indulgent of Joanie, constantly folding after taking a stand against her daughter's activities. Her decision to start getting nosy about the nature of Joanie's job is motivated more by Joanie dating an older guy than by Joanie's secretive behavior.

* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Joanie acts this way when Georgia starts getting too nosy with her.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smuggling.jpg]]

* SpaceWhaleAesop: "If you're an average high school-aged girl and someone approaches you to start smuggling diamonds from coast-to-coast, turn down the opportunity."

** Joanie's motivations are very complex for this type of movie. She initially gets involved out of a wish to get socially accepted by cool girls Annabel and Sharnae, then sticks with it to help her brother out, but also falls in love with Tucker, then by the end she's doing it purely out of self-interest (allegedly to pay for college).

** Joanie's motivations are very complex for this type of movie. She initially gets involved out of a wish to get socially accepted by cool girls Annabel and Sharnae, then sticks with it to help her brother out, but also falls in love with Tucker, then by the end she's doing it for purely out of self-interest (allegedly to pay for college).

* NobleTopEnforcer: Tucker is much nice than Danny, is more concerned with the business logistics of the operation than avoiding the law, and has a sensitive side that Joanie brings out.

** Georgia is also more flawed than a Lifetime Concerned Mother would usually be. On one hand she's a MamaBar (though she sometimes wanders into MyBelovedSmother land). But she's also way too indulgent of Joanie, constantly folding after taking a stand against her daughter's activities. Her decision to start getting nosy about the nature of Joanie's job is motivated more by Joanie dating an older guy than by Joanie's secretive behavior.

** Georgia is also more flawed than a Lifetime Concerned Mother would usually be. She's way too indulgent of Joanie, constantly folding after taking a stand against her daughter's activities. Her decision to start getting nosy about the nature of Joanie's job is motivated more by Joanie dating an older guy than by Joanie's secretive behavior.