Aidan Ritchie | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, around 3 in the morning, I watched the Lifetime film, Match, Meet, Murder!

Why Was I Watching It?

It was late, I had insomnia, and the title just spoke to me. What can I say? I had many reasons for my decision and I don’t regret it for a minute.

What Was It About?

Ruby (Stephanie Sy) is a lingerie designer who has been in a dating slump ever since ending her long-term relationship with independent journalist Luke (Erik Athavale). Ruby’s friend, photographer Ella (Amanda Austin), gives her a secret code for the very exclusive Rima dating app. Soon, Ruby is matched with Dylan (Jacob Blair).

Dylan, it turns out, is a bit of celebrity. He was the winning contestant on a reality show hosted by notorious matchmaker, Jules (Lisa Marie DiGiacinto). The season may have ended with Dylan getting engaged but his new fiancée mysteriously vanished. Now, Dylan is dating Ruby and he doesn’t seem to be quite stable. He still has his ex’s clothes hanging in his bedroom closet. Run, Ruby, run!

What Worked?

I absolutely loved the demented performance of Lisa Marie DiGiacinto, who played Jules the matchmaker. I can’t say too much about it without spoiling the film but I will say that DiGiacinto fully understood the importance of embracing the melodrama in a film like this.

Some of Ruby’s lingerie designs were cute. The black bralette was adorable. Of course, I’d never be able to wear it because I actually have boobs.

What Did Not Work?

I’m usually willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to a Lifetime film because the melodrama is usually the point. That said, I had a hard time believing that any successful woman could be as clueless as Ruby. She acted as if the concepts of both dating apps and reality TV were entirely new to her. I could excuse her dating app confusion because her character was said to be coming out of a long term relationship. But, seriously — not knowing about a reality television show? The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are inescapable, whether you watch them or not. I haven’t been able to really sit down and watch Love Island but it only takes a few minutes of me scrolling twitter before I feel as if I have.

As well, it took Ruby way too long to figure out that there might be something strange about Dylan’s previous girlfriend disappearing. Discovering her clothes still hanging in his closet? That’s a bit too obvious of a red flag to be shrugged off for as long as she did.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Lingerie designer is definitely one of my fallback options if the whole movie-watching writer thing doesn’t work out. I will also say that I related to the shock of the assistant who introduced Ruby to reality television and was shocked to discover just how little Ruby apparently knew about pop culture.

Lessons Learned

If a guy you barely know has all of his ex’s clothes still hanging in his closet, run! To be honest, you shouldn’t need a movie to learn that lesson.

How-it-ends

How It Ends is a horror/thriller from Netflix and if you don’t watch, Netflix will probably make you. The story begins with Will, an up and coming lawyer who is seeing the ultrasound of his soon to be son with beloved Samantha. Will is sweet, but the least manly man to ever unmanly. He’s wound tight, nervous, and hyper-insecure. Will needs to get Sam’s father Tom (Forest Whitaker) to give his blessing so Will and Sam can wed. Will flies from the greatest city on Earth- Seattle to a totally ok City of Chicago to see Tom.

We meet Tom and his wife. Tom is everything Sam is not. Tom was a career Marine, manly, confident, and determined. During the dinner, Tom does everything, but say to Will- You are a wimpy worthless un-man. Tom’s response is both whiny and defensive. It’s just all kinds of awful. Then, the power goes out nationwide with F-22s buzzing around Chicago AND all communications are down as well nationwide. Tom asks if Will rise to the occasion and road trip to Seattle to find/rescue Sam.

I know, I know… this sounds like Taken et al, but it’s not. It becomes a Father (in-Law) and Son survival story and we watch Will become a Man. They leave in Tom’s Cadillac and hit the road to Seattle. Immediately, they find that they cannot stay on the main roads to get there because rednecks try to steal their car at the first rest stop and then an escaped convict tries to murder them. This is within the first half hour of this very action packed show and we still don’t know what caused the catastrophe. We get hints, but it’s not Aliens …. I don’t think. Frankly, I’m still not totally sure of all of the details of the disaster even now.

They decide to stay off the main roads and team up with a teen who has mechanical skills. Along the way, people are trying to murder them for gas and supplies. The teen that goes with them becomes part of Will and Tom tribe for a short time and has to kill to protect her new tribe. Unfortunately, this is too much for the teenager to accept and she abandons Will and Tom to find her way forward alone. It’s a very accurate depiction of societal breakdown. During Katrina, towns setup armed checkpoints to prevent looting and mayhem. I had friends in Mississippi during Katrina and they did exactly that. They needed to shut ingress and egress from their communities to survive and they did so. The communities acted like a tribe would.

Will has to learn how to shoot, drive and shoot, do a chest-tube, read people, give up trust, and murder. We watch him change from a spineless nerd to a confident leader who will readily kill to protect his tribe. During Will’s transformation, the tribal bond between Will and Tom becomes as strong as steel. It’s a story that gets to the very foundation of what family does and what it means to be part of a tribe. The moment the lights go out, we will go from Facebook likes to being real tribal humans again.

When Will gets to Seattle, it’s heartbreaking. Seattle is totally destroyed….sniff. It just gets you. Even the Clink…The Home of my Beloved Seahawks is gone. THE PAIN, THE PAIN! It’s like 2015 all over again! Will’s beloved is gone, but she left a note for her coordinates. Therefore, Will has to go back on the road to find her and save her from whomever.

Will finds Sam with a neighbor Randy who is at his mountain lodge getaway. Randy is the epitome of our current society. He is a wealthy-techie-know-it-all-socially-awkward-creep who thinks that all of his thoughts are facts. He believes that in this new society he will continue to be on top and he tries to take Sam as his own. Not so fast, the world has changed- sorry the power was down forever so no more facebook updates for you. Life has reverted back to a tribe-based system and Randy is left behind literally into dust.

I would recommend this film because it has tremendous suspense and dares to show us what we’ve lost trading our friendships for likes and retweets. You never really know what caused the disaster because that is not the story. The story is about the immediate reemergence of tribal life and how it enables people to determine rapidly who is a friend and who is a foe. In essence, the film challenges us to see a possible positive to this new reality. People are closer and snakes like Randy are easily identified and remedied for the good of the tribe. We still survive, but we have to do it as human beings.