Last night, the Dazzling Erin and I watched the latest Lifetime film premiere, Petty Little Addict!

Why Were We Watching It?

Yesterday was all about sisterly bonding time!  Erin and I basically told the rest of the world to get lost and then we spent the entire day hanging out together, talking about life, pondering the great questions of the universe, and laughing.  In fact, we probably spent more time laughing than pondering the great questions of the universe.  We also chased a chicken out of our backyard!  (He belongs to one of our neighbors.)

And really, what better way is there to bond than by watching a Lifetime movie!?  When my friend Trevor informed me that Pretty Little Addict would be premiering last night,  I knew that there was no way that Erin and I were going to miss it!

What Was It About?

It’s about a pretty little addict!

Her name is Jennifer (Andrea Bowen) and she has just lost her father to cancer.  To deal with her sorrow, she drinks.  Meanwhile, across town, Colin Brown (Keenan Tracy) is excited because he’s received a scholarship to run track in college.  Colin’s entire future is pretty much set and it all looks great, assuming that he never loses the ability to walk.

As fate would have it, Jennifer and Colin end up at the same party.  And, when a drunk Jennifer attempts to leave the party, she accidentally runs over Colin.  Colin is crippled and Jennifer is ordered to check into rehab.

While Jennifer is trying to get sober, Colin’s brother, Alex (Scott Lyster), is looking for revenge.  Alex is mentally unstable and has a drinking problem of his own.  He also has a long and violent criminal record.  When he discovers that Jennifer is in rehab, he gets a job working for the vending machine company that just happens to service the machines inside the rehab facility.  Soon, Alex is flirting with Jennifer while also trying to manipulate her into giving up her new found sobriety.

Meanwhile, Colin’s family is making plans to sue Jennifer’s mother…

What Worked?

One thing that you can definitely say about Pretty Little Addict is that it had its heart in the right place.  It sincerely did attempt to use its melodramatic storyline to say something meaningful about addiction and the struggle of recovery.  Both Scott Lyster and Keenan Tracy gave good performances and I also liked Morgan Taylor Campbell in the role of Jennifer’s paranoid roommate.

What Did Not Work?

Good intentions aside, this is one of those films that just never really seemed to come together.  It felt uneven and strangely paced and, even by the standards of Lifetime, the plot was full of obvious and glaring holes.  Alex’s plan seemed unnecessarily complicated.  Considering that he was an alcoholic, he could have just as easily checked himself into rehab and then he would have had much easier access to Jennifer than he did as a fake deliveryman.  It would have been a lot less trouble for him as well.

From the start of the movie to the end, Jennifer was a fairly unlikable character.  Even after she got sober, she never really seemed to understand just how much damage she had done.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I rarely drink so there was a definite shortage of “Oh my God!  Just like me!” moments.  However, I did cringe a little when the rehab patients had to engage in a trust exercise that deal with being blindfolded.  That’s because, in high school, I took part in a similar trust exercise.  My friend Jennifer was blindfolded and I was supposed to catch her when she fell backwards.  However, I’ve only got a three-minute attention span so, by the time she actually started to fall back, I was no longer paying attention and I kind of forgot to catch her.  Whoops!

Lessons Learned

Don’t drink and drive, which is actually a pretty good lesson.