Strangers Beside Me

Lifetime Movie Review: The Perfect Wife (2001)

The Perfect Wife (2001) Shannon Sturges, Perry King, Leslie-Ann Down

Woman who loves her brother too much seeks revenge against a doctor she believes allowed him to die.

Again with the creepy buried incest theme, what’s up with that Lifetime? Anyhoo, Leah believes that a doctor (Brad Steward) erred in keeping the driver in an accident that killed her bike-riding brother alive while letting the brother die (it seems as if some kind of organ transplant might have been involved, but it’s not clear what happened exactly; she just overhears the doctor saying he doesn’t “like playing God” and runs with it.) Leah had been in charge of protecting said brother from their abusive stepfather, and she’s not about to stop protecting him now! For starters, she immediately pulls the plug on the driver in the hospital. Why should she live when her brother died?

Then, naturally Leah sets out to revenge her brother’s death by marrying the doctor, killing his secretary so she can keep tabs on him at the office too by taking her place, setting his brother (also a doctor in their joint practice) up to make a medical “error” that leads to the death of a patient, putting morphine in the brother’s oatmeal so it looks like he overdosed on the same drugs he must have been taking when he “wrote” the fatal prescription, and then finally getting around to poisoning Dr. Brad himself once she thinks he’s suffered enough. (But not before she is forced to poison the driver also, who it turns out just barely survived at the hospital and shows up to try to blackmail Leah).

Meanwhile, the loyal housekeeper Leah got fired by planting “stolen” jewelry on her after the housekeeper had found her picture of the brother in her jewelry box has been in contact with the doctor’s ex-wife, Helen. She tells Helen that not only does the Leah have some kind of hot young boyfriend (and you would think so, considering the Valentine’s cards she had kept to and from him in the jewelry box--again, ew), but she’s taking birth control pills while telling the doctor she is pregnant. Helen is deeply concerned; it has emerged that Helen went through a little harridan phase, but is all better now due to therapy and would be ready to love Dr. Brad as he deserves, if he weren't already married to Liza (Leah's assumed name for the purposes of torturing Dr. Brad).

Helen starts investigating, figures out that Leah is indeed some kind of psycho killer and, happily, intervenes just in time! Just as Leah has administered Dr. Steward his own fatal dose, Helen shows up at the house, and ends up struggling with Leah over a gun. Leah is accidentally shot, and dies. But Dr. Steward has roused himself enough from his drugged stupor to perform CPR! Leah opens her eyes, and says "Why didn't you let me die?" He replies "Because I'm a doctor." Helen and Brad exchange an affectionate look, and we just know those two crazy kids are going to work it out.

Lifetime Rating: ***

Lifetime Movie Review: The Perfect Neighbor (2005)

The Perfect Neighbor (2005) Susan Blakely, Perry King, Barbara Niven.

Donna Germaine undoubtedly speaks for a lot of women out there when, after her married lover finally gets around to telling her that, no, he actually has no intention of leaving his wife, and made that decision months ago though he’s gone on sleeping with Donna just the same all this time, she stabs him with a kitchen knife and buries him in the woods. But after that it gets a little weird.

We arrive in medias res, Donna having fled her former abode after killing her boyfriend, with Donna taking up temporary residence with her aunt in another city. It quickly emerges that Donna has one of those oddly specific Lifetime pathologies for women. She blames her (alcoholic) mother for having nagged her dad too much over his philandering. She pushed him away, and he left one day when Donna was a little girl and never came back again! Therefore, Donna compulsively dates married men then goes a little haywire if they don’t leave their wives for her.

Donna spots a hot prospect across the street the same day she arrives at her aunt’s house. Her gossipy aunt tells her the married tv executive, William Costigan, had a rocky patch with his wife Jeannie a few years back over another woman, and Jeannie almost took their daughter and left, but everything’s okay now. (So obviously Jeannie totally doesn’t deserve William). Donna learns that William is currently suspected of maybe having something going with a colleague, so she sets out to bust up the Costigan’s marriage by killing the colleague after putting pictures and personal items of William’s at the colleague’s house for the police to find, so that Jeannie will find out about the “affair” once her husband is investigated by the police in connection with the murder. Meanwhile, Donna’s aunt discovers evidence of Donna’s creepy stalking, so down the stairs she tumbles to her death. But it’s all worth it because Jeannie does indeed take their daughter and leave William.

This is the perfect time for a romantic evening! But it turns out, William is not that into her, and blows her off when he learns his daughter is sick. He and his wife re-bond at the hospital (her illness was caused by stress over their marital difficulties, after all), but when they return to the house, Donna is there with a gun! She demands that Jeannie leave so she and William can be together, and threatens to shoot her. The Costigans succeed in overcoming her together, and accidentally shoot her to death in the process (thus saving their happy marriage).

Lifetime Rating: ***

Lifetime Movie Review: Bad to the Bone (1997)

Bad to the Bone (1997) Kristy Swanson, David Chokachi, Jeremy London

Sexually manipulative sociopath undone by poor financial planning skills.

Opens with Daniel Wells, in prison, answering the question, tell me about your relationship with your sister Frankie. “She used to cut my hair ...”

Cut to Frankie combing and cutting Daniel’s hair, while encouraging him to find a girlfriend and learn about the facts of life. “I can’t do everything for you, you know!” Thus introducing the queasy sexual undertone to Daniel & Frankie’s relationship that you can’t erase from your brain no matter how hard you shake your head, unless you’re dim bulb Daniel, in which case you are somehow a participant but never, ever an observer.

Frankie’s had about enough of her nagging mom, always wanting Frankie to get a job just because she’s been out of school for a year and expecting her not to stay out all night or accept presents from men in exchange for sexual favors and whatnot. Plus, mom never even acknowledges that her last husband was beating and molesting Frankie all the time. Mom gets shot at work by an unknown assailant, Frankie’s new boyfriend Waldo gives her an alibi, and they split to the city with the half-million dollars Frankie has inherited alone (because Daniel is a minor) from her evil stepfather via mom, and they open a nightclub.

But whoopsy, Frankie’s spent too much money on her loft and her Porsche and the nightclub, which isn’t bringing in enough money. She threatens to cut Waldo loose if he doesn’t get her money straightened out, and he threatens to rescind his alibi, so Frankie gives baby brother a call. Daniel comes to visit on break from college, and she tells him that Waldo had mom killed by his mob buddies to get at her fortune through Frankie, and that Frankie is a virtual prisoner in her fabulous loft, and also Waldo beats her. She sadly describes to Daniel how she clings to the memory of that one time when they got stranded in a cabin in the woods together and had to stay there all night, sleeping in the same sleeping bag, and just listening to the rain. “It was the last time I felt safe.” She convinces Daniel that the only way out of her predicament is for Daniel to kill Waldo. Later, she puts on her finest lingerie and comes on to Waldo. He wants to close the door, but Frankie assures him Daniel can’t hear anything. Cut to Daniel, bolt upright in bed, listening to the “rain.” Afterwards, Frankie appears at his door in the same lingerie and fills him in on the details about how he’s going to kill Waldo.

Daniel turns out to be a bit of a weak link (surprise!) in her brilliant murder scheme, which the police solve almost immediately after Daniel kills Waldo. Daniel loyally accepts all the blame while Frankie skips out on her bail and goes on a usually initially successful serial millionaire hunt (and who knew there were so many just lying around like that), but her plans keep foundering on the whole your-picture-on-America’s-Most-Wanted thing. Police finally succeed in convincing Daniel that maybe Waldo wasn’t a vicious mob thug after all and maybe his sister is a psycho who killed their mom and so forth, and he agrees to betray her. She comes to the end of her last dollar out on the run and places a call to a traceable number Daniel has left for her, and she is caught and arrested.

Daniel reflects: The thing that hurts the most was, he thought he was special, not just one of her guys. Oh ew.

This would have been an above-average Lifetime bad girl movie, except the incest theme sucked half the joy out of it by interfering so much with any possible vicarious enjoyment of the badness. You went too far this time, Lifetime!

Lifetime rating: **

Lifetime Movie Review: Mind Games (1998)

Mind Games (1998) Jayne Brook, Lindsay Frost, Kyle Secor.

A psycho psychotherapist manipulates a family nigh unto self-immolation, but gets burned herself instead. Symbolism! As marked: +House=family, ++Blood in the home=death threat to the family, +++Fire=destruction of family

We open with Hannah Berrick celebrating the success of her environmentally-conscious cosmetics company (“Virtues”) and her appearance on the cover of Chicago magazine at a party at home+ with friends and family. Just as she begins her “I owe it all to my wonderful supportive husband and kids” toast, a guest shrieks in horror. Red liquid is dripping from the floor above!++

It turns out their young son Luke has decided to clean his paintbrushes by putting them in the shower and leaving them there. It is time to deal with Luke’s behavior problems. But Karen the beautiful blond family therapist has a mysterious troubled past, and begins unraveling the family unit posthaste. She convinces Hannah to tell Doug about a one-night stand she had seven years ago, Doug worries about the parentage of his daughter about that age, has revenge sex with Karen, and moves out of the house. Karen tells Hannah that Doug has been molesting their daughter, and little Luke that his parents will probably divorce and send him to boarding school, but that anger is his friend, he should use it as his guide.

Luke sets fire to his room+++, whereupon the Berricks finally figure out what is going on and begin to turn the tables. Hannah tries to tell the other therapists at the clinic what Karen has been up to, but Karen has already told them that Hannah is a compulsive adulterer who has persistent dreams about the family home being on fire+++ and is the source of all of the family problems, so they think she is just lashing at out her therapist with her crazy accusations.

Finally a detective investigating the “suicide” of a previous patient of Karen’s hooks them up with Karen’s sister, Anne, who tells of their father’s sexual abuse of both of them, and Karen’s murder of their parents,++ also disguised as suicides. Anne says, some people are just evil: Dad opened the door, but Karen walked right through. They convince her to come forward about Karen’s murder of her parents, and attempt to go into hiding from Karen until Anne can speak to the police, but Karen finds Anne and kills her, then follows them to their cabin in the woods and kidnaps Luke. She crashes her car, which bursts into flames, and the Berricks rescue Luke, but when Hannah tries to drag Karen out of the car, Karen tries to drag her into it instead.+++ The Berricks run from the car, which explodes as soon as they are clear of it.

We close with Hannah and Doug sitting in their garden patio, planning the renovation of their partially burned house+, and a message Karen has left on another therapist's answering machine from beyond the grave: "Once you start to destroy your family, you've destroyed a part of yourself. And then, where does it end?"

Lifetime Rating: ***

Themes

Here's a list of some of the themes I expect to be tagging in my movie and book reviews here. I'll be adding to this list and posting longer discussions of each as my review database grows and I'm able to flesh them out more with examples.

Abuse Excuse
The childhood abuse theory of human evil has largely replaced the theological one in most contemporary movies and fiction. In the Lifetime format, usually a brief pro-forma flashback or description is used to "explain" why a bad person is so very bad. It more often appears as a device to enhance the plausibility of floridly evil characters than as an actual subject of the drama, though sometimes the specific form of abuse has plot implications also.

Bad Girls
Usually sexually manipulative sociopaths, though occasionally there's a "normal" woman deranged by childlessness or infidelity. It's unknown whether most Lifetime viewers enjoy tales of bad women as an exercise in social disapproval and self-validation, or as vicarious pleasure in forbidden bad behavior. (I tend to vacillate between the two in the course of a viewing, but the latter usually wins. Shhh, don't tell anyone!) Either way, these are pretty much the most fun Lifetime movies there are, in my opinion.

Demon Lover
Oh no, my perfect new boyfriend/husband or latest date is a scary stalker or wife-killer! Maybe! I won't know for sure until I break into his apartment/office/computer ...

Gaslighting
Nobody else can see the unnerving things I see! Is someone trying to drive me crazy, or just trying to make me look crazy to people who might otherwise help me?

Kill My Husband
Or sometimes just maim my husband. Ripped straight from the pages of Jane Eyre! Husband is maimed or killed in the course of attempting either to kill you, or just to commit various evil acts while suffocating you with his crazy love. You get the house, the kids, and the money and maybe a hot new boyfriend if he dies, or all of the above (less the boyfriend) plus a non-threatening (and probably paralyzed) grateful object of your care if he lives. And absolutely none of this is your fault! Grim, yet surprisingly common!

Secret Identities
You suddenly discover your husband is a completely different person than you thought he was, usually some kind of dangerous criminal, usually after he has faked his own death. Play your cards right and you might get the money, but you've got to stop him from killing you first, which you will! Potentially aggravating subsequent marriage counseling is obviated by his death or arrest. This is really a subset of Kill My Husband, but I think the frequency of the faked-death plot rates its own category.

Stranger Danger
A criminal or group of criminals threaten a family, which in turn is in the midst of some kind of trial of its own. The family bonds by repelling the outsiders.

Stranger in the House
This has some features in common with fairy tales about changelings, and with Heathcliff (probably a Gypsy baby!) in Wuthering Heights. A woman lets a safe-seeming person into the house--it could be a renter, or a handyman, or someone posing as a long-lost relative--and must discover the truth in time to repel the danger before she or her family is killed.

Lifetime Facts for Women
Not really a theme, but I'd like to keep track of them anyway. These are bald-faced lies about how the world works--usually touching on the legal system, but sometimes we get fake science and technology facts also--that are inserted into a Lifetime movie script to make the plot work. Kind of.