Jesse James Miller | Through the Shattered Lens

(Lisa is currently in the process of trying to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing all 40 of the movies that she recorded from the start of March to the end of June. She’s trying to get it all done by July 11th! Will she make it!? Keep visiting the site to find out!)

The 23rd film on my DVR was A Wife’s Suspicion.

I recorded this on May 23rd and, just like with Broken Promise, you can probably guess by the title alone that I recorded this off of Lifetime. In fact, when I first saw that I had recorded this movie, I went back and checked to make sure that I hadn’t already reviewed a Lifetime film called A Wife’s Suspicion. Seriously, you have to wonder how it could possibly taken until 2016 for Lifetime to use this title.

(In all fairness, before Lifetime picked it up, the movie’s title was Evidence of Truth. I’m actually glad that they changed the title, just because Evidence of Truth makes it sound like one of those tedious climate change documentaries that you sometimes come across on Netflix.)

Anyway, A Wife’s Suspicion is a mix of CSI procedural and Lifetime melodrama. Renee Murphy (Andrea Roth) is the type of forensic examiner who talks to corpses while she examines them. She’s stubborn but she gets results, dammit! She once dated Detective Kyle Ferguson (Sebastian Spence) but, after they broke up, she ended up married to Jack Murphy (Woody Jeffreys). Jack seems like he’s a great guy and he’s got impressive hair but women are being murdered and Renee has reason to suspect that Jack might be the murderer.

It doesn’t help, of course, that Jack has been keeping secrets from her. When she decides to follow him, Renee spots Jack talking to a younger woman. Could Jack be having an affair or is he telling the truth when he says that he’s simply the woman’s sponsor? It turns out that Jack has had issues with addiction in the past. That’s one of those things that he didn’t tell his wife because he wanted “a second chance” at life.

Does Renee give Jack that second chance or does she work with her ex-boyfriend to put him in prison? Decisions, decision….

When I mentioned that I was watching A Wife’s Suspicion, my Lifetime-watching friend Trevor asked me if the movie had bored me to tears yet. Well, the movie never quite brought tears to my eyes but I still quickly discovered what he was talking about. A Wife’s Suspicion moves slowly, largely because there’s barely enough plot for an hour-long cop show, much less a 90 minute movie. You’ll be able to guess whether Jack is guilty or not fairly early and the fact that you figured it out but Renee didn’t only serves to make Renee an annoying character.

Sadly, A Wife’s Suspicion is a film that I would recommend skipping.

Last night, I watched the Lifetime original film, Sorority Murder!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching because it was on Lifetime. However, beyond that, I had high hopes for this film because Lifetime has a pretty good track record when it comes to over-the-top melodrama about sororities. Remember The Haunting Of Sorority Row?

What Was It About?

Jen (Scarlett Byrne) has a lot to deal with. She has just started her first semester at college and she already has a huge design project due. Her alcoholic mother (Sarah-Jane Redmond) keeps getting arrested and needs her daughter to bail her out. And, on top of all that, Jen is being harassed by the apparently crazy president of her sorority.

When the president turns up dead, everyone assumes that Jen must have killed her! However, Jen was alone in her bedroom, working on that design project, when the crime was committed! Can Jen track down the real murderer before the semester ends? Will Jen’s mother ever get her drinking under control? And will Jen ever manage to finish that project!?

You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

What Worked?

The film’s title promised both a sorority and a murder and it totally delivered both of those things. You have to appreciate a film that actually keeps its promises. The murder mystery was enjoyable, if a little predictable. I especially enjoyed the way the film portrayed the sorority as almost being a Scientology-style cult. I was half-expecting someone to start talking about evil Lord Xenu.

Also, I liked the relationship between Jen and her mother. It was sweet and touching, in the best Lifetime tradition.

What Did Not Work?

Sadly, the film never quite reached the heights of the greatest of all Lifetime sorority films, The Haunting of Sorority Row. But, when taken on its own terms, the entire film worked. It was a good Lifetime movie.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I have never been a member of a formal sorority (though I am a member of the unofficial sisterhood of red-headed film bloggers) and I have never killed anyone, though I have been tempted. So, unfortunately, this was the rare Lifetime film to which I could not directly relate.

Then again, when the film is about murder, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

(Actually, I did relate to Jen’s desperate attempts to get her design project completed while dealing with all the death, lies, and cover-ups. What’s sad is that the project itself — which showed that Jen was heavily influenced by the Bauhaus School of Design — did not look like it was that impressive. I would have given her a C at the most.)

Lessons Learned

Stay away from sororities! They’re murder.