Tag Archives: Lifetime

Lifetime Film Review: My Wife’s Secret Life (dir by Jason Bourque)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, let’s say that your husband has cheated on you.

Now, obviously, the easiest thing to say is that you should just dump his ass but reality is always a bit more complicated.  The fact of the matter is that you’ve got two kids with him.  You two share a big suburban home.  He’s got a successful career as an attorney.  You’ve got a successful career of your own.  And he says that he’s sorry.  He says that he’ll never stray again.  Even if you’re not sure that you’ll ever be able to trust him again, you do love him.  So, you say that you forgive him.  You say that you’re giving him a second chance.  But the doubt and the pain still lingers.

What do you do?

How about having a one night stand with a near-stranger?

That’s what Laurel Briggs (Kate Villanova) does at the beginning of My Wife’s Secret Life.  She’s at a business conference.  Oddly, the hotel somehow screwed up her reservation and, as a result, she’s been separated from her colleagues.  She meets a handsome and charming man (Matthew McCaull).  One thing leads to another and Laurel ends up spending the night with this man.  (If you’re wondering why I’m not telling you the man’s name, that’s because he uses several over the course of the film).  That morning, when she leaves his hotel room, she makes it clear that she doesn’t want to see him again.  Laurel just wants to return home to her husband, James (Jason Cermak), and move on with her life.

Of course, this is a Lifetime movie so it’s not going to be that simple.  At first, Laurel’s one night stand doesn’t seem like he’s capable of taking the hint.  He’s the type of guy who shows up at your office unannounced and tries to guilt you into spending the day with him.  Then, eventually, he become the type of stalker who breaks into houses and leaves behind roses and poems by Lord Byron.  Soon, he’s not only stalking Laurel but he’s also pursuing a relationship with Laurel’s sister (Marnie Mahannah).

It turns out that our Lord Byron-obsessed stalker is more than just the typical type of obsessive who regularly shows up in Lifetime movies.  He’s got his own reasons for specifically targeting Laurel and her husband and it turns out that he’ll stop at nothing to accomplish his sinister goals….

Sounds pretty melodramatic, right?  Well, I supposed it is but that’s kind of the point.  I mean, that’s why we watch Lifetime films.  We watch them for the infidelity and the dangerous men who have secrets and the women who make one mistake and then have to spend the entire movie dealing with the consequences.  Enjoying a Lifetime film is all about embracing the melodrama and this is a film that cries out for a hug.  This is a film that celebrates everything that we love about Lifetime.  Director Jason Bourque keeps the action moving at an enjoyably quick pace and he’s aided by a cast who keeps the action grounded in reality.  Villanova and Cermak have exactly the right chemistry to be believable as a couple struggling to keep their marriage alive and Matthew McCaull is a wonderfully magnetic force of chaos and destruction.  It’s an enjoyable film and, since it’s a Lifetime film, it will probably be aired multiple times between now and 2021.  So, keep an eye out for it!

Lifetime Film Review: Amish Abduction (dir by Ali Liebert)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Amish Abduction tells the story of Annie (Sara Canning) and Jacob (Steve Byers).

As you may have guessed from the title (and the trailer, if you watched it), Annie and Jacob are Amish.  They live in a simple home.  They dress modestly.  They ride around in a buggy.  Annie talks about how little she trusts “the English.”  They spend a lot of time working in the fields.  They appaear to be about as Amish as Amish can be.  However, it quickly becomes obvious that Jacob has grown disillusioned with Amish life.  He wants to leave the community and live with the English.  He’s even purchased a phone!  “Look at everything that it can do!” he says in amazement as he stares down at the screen in his palm.  He tries to give Annie a phone as well but Annie has no use for it.  Not yet, anyways….

However, it turns out that Jacob is not merely suffering from a second Rumspringa.  Jacob’s gotten into some serious trouble.  He’s been buying whiskey from one of the English, a redneck who likes to wander around in the Pennsylvania wilderness.  When the redneck starts acting like a jackass, Jacob kills him.  When the police show up at the village and start asking questions, the Amish keep quiet.  They want nothing to do with the outside world.

One morning, Annie wakes up and discovers that Jacob has left during the night.  He’s abandoned his culture, his religion, and his wife.  However, Jacob has taken their son with him.  Jacob is willing to go to court and demand custody.  Annie will have to leave the village and enter the world of the English in order to save her son from his increasingly demented father.

Ah, the Amish.  I have actually lost track of the number of movies that I’ve seen about the Amish.  Films about the Amish always emphasize the idea that the Amish are simple people who reject modern technology and still live the way that their ancestors lived back in the very distant past.  Inevitably, these movies always have at least one scene where an Amish person is amazed by a television or a radio or a phone.

Of course, the truth is far more complicated.  There’s a fascinating documentary called Devil’s Playground, that follows several Amish teens as they go through Rumspringa, which is a time when they can take part in the modern world and decide for themselves whether or not to be baptized into the Amish church or to leave the community.  As that documentary demonstrated, just because the Amish don’t take part in much of modern society, that doesn’t mean that they’re ignorant of it.  Unfortunately, most films take a far more simplistic (and rather condescending) approach to portraying the Amish.

That said, Amish Abduction is one of the better “Amish” films that I’ve seen recently.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that its a 100% accurate but it does mean that, at the very least, it treats its characters as something more than just outsiders to be gawked at.  Sara Canning, in particular, gives a good and heartfelt performance as Annie and the film presents her character and her concerns in a fair and even-handed manner.  She was particularly strong during one scene in which Annie has a nightmare about what it would like to become one of the English.  Amish Abduction may be about the Amish but it’s also about a woman trying to protect the most important thing in her life and who can’t relate to that?

Lifetime Film Review: Sleeping With My Student (dir by Tom Shell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here you are.

You’re middle-aged.  You’ve just split up with your adulterous husband.  Your teenage daughter is upset because she’s about to start at a new school.  Even worse, you’ve just been hired to be the new principal at that school.  It’s the summer.  You’re at a conference.  This is your last chance to enjoy yourself before a new school year begins.

You’re at the hotel pool.  Suddenly, a handsome man who is quite a bit younger than you jumps into the pool and, after briefly fooling you into thinking that he’s drowned, he starts up a conversation with you.  He’s charming in a simple way.  He says that you were sexy when you were concerned that he might be dead.  He invites you back to his room and you know exactly why.

Do you go with him?

That’s the decision that Kathy (Gina Holden) is faced with at the start of the Lifetime film, Sleeping With My Student.  What does she do when she’s given the opportunity to have one night of passion with Ian (Mitchell Hoog)?  Well, your answer is right there in the first half of the film’s title.  And, as you can probably guess from the second half of title, Ian eventually turns up as a student at Kathy’s school!  Even worse, Ian has a reputation for being a bad boy and a trouble maker and soon, he’s dating Kathy’s daughter, Bree (Jessica Belkin)!

Of course, it all turns out to be about more than just one night stands and bad disciplinary histories.  It turns out that it wasn’t a coincidence that Ian showed up at the hotel and jumped into the pool at the same moment that Kathy just happened to be there.  It also wasn’t a coincidence that Ian just happened to end up getting transferred to Kathy’s new school.  It’s all a part of a massive scheme that Ian has cooked up in order to get vengeance for something that happened in the past.  I mean, seriously, no one should be surprised.  There are no coincidences when it comes to Lifetime.

Speaking as someone who has seen a few hundred Lifetime films over the past few years, I enjoyed Sleeping With My Student.  Gina Holde, Mitchell Hoog, and Jessica Belkin were all well-cast in their rules and the great Gerald Webb showed up as Officer Compton, the school security officer who first explains that Ian is bad news.  Yes, the plot was a bit predictable but that’s honestly a part of the film’s appeal.  You don’t necessarily watch a Lifetime film because you want to see something unexpected.  Instead, the appeal of these films is to be found in their very predictability.  There’s something comforting in knowing that, on Lifetime, no one night stand will turn out to be just a one night stand and that the film’s villain will always do something particularly evil at the halfway mark.  The best Lifetime films are cinematic comfort food.  They give you exactly what you want and they don’t demand much in return and we’re all the better for it!

Lifetime Film Review: Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter (dir by Catherine Cyran)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that, for some reason, I’ve always had a weakness of Mafia movies.

For whatever reason, I just find them to be fascinating, as well as terrifically entertaining.  And when I say that I love mafia movies, I’m not just talking about the ones that everyone else loves, either.  I mean, sure, I love The Godfather films and Goodfellas and all of that.  I can’t wait for the Sopranos prequel to come out next year and I’m eagerly counting down the days until The Irishman drops on Netflix.  However, I also love the Mafia movies that everyone else seems to hate.  Some day, I’m going to get around to writing a stirring defense of Gotti.  Just you wait!

I’m half-Irish and fourth-Italian.  As far as I know, I don’t have any relatives involved with organized crime and, to be honest, I should probably be offended by all of the Mafia stereotypes that I’m exposed too whenever I turn on the television.  But, I have to be honest.  If my father had been in the Mafia, I totally would have used it to my advantage.  I would have been like, “You think you’re some sort of big shot, like Frankie Valli or somebody?  Do you know who my faddah is?  You want me to call him down here right now?”

The Lifetime film Victoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter is all about being the daughter of a very powerful man.  Victoria Gotti herself even narrates the film and appears in cut-away scenes to discuss what it was like to grow up as the daughter of notorious mob boss, John Gotti.  At the same time, Chelsea Frei plays Victoria in dramatized scenes, showing her talking to her father (Maurice Benard) and dealing with her good-for-nothing husband, Carmine (Elijah Silva).  Because the film is told entirely from Victoria’s point of view, we only see John Gotti through her eyes. In this film, John Gotti is a loving father who is often away from his wife and daughters because he’s either in jail or hiding out from the authorities.  He’s fond of saying stuff like, “Nothing’s more important than family.”  Despite the fact that Maurice Benard gives a convincing performance as Gotti, you’re never quite sure what’s actually going on in his head.  Is he a ruthless murderer or is he just a blue collar guy looking out for his family?  The film isn’t sure but then again, Victoria seems to be unsure as well.  Undoubtedly, someone like John Gotti had to keep a lot of himself hidden away from even those closest to him.

Because of the film’s Victoria-centric structure, we don’t actually get to see any of the standard mafia action.  We hear about people getting taken out by the mob but we don’t actually see any of it happen.  Those hoping for a big mafia epic will undoubtedly be disappointed.  (The film is nearly over before John Gotti even takes over the Gambino Family.)  Instead, the film focuses on Victoria dealing with people judging her because of who her father is and her subsequent marriage to the worthless Carmine.  To be absolutely honest, there’s really not much going on in the movie, as most of the major action occurs off-screen.  However, Chelsea Frei gives a good performance as Victoria and the film occasionally does a good job of contrasting Gotti family life with Gotti crime life.  It’s not a classic mob film but it does provide just enough Cosa Nostra swagger to keep the viewer occupied until the release of The Irishman.

 

What Lisa Watched This Morning #204: Your Family Or Your Life (a.k.a. April’s Flowers) (dir by Tom Shell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The morning, I watched the latest Lifetime Movie Network premiere, Your Family Or Your Life!

Why Was I Watching It?

Your Family or Your Life premiered last night on the Lifetime Movie Network but, because it was All Saints’ Day, I spent yesterday with my sisters, singing Shakira songs, not watching anything on television, and basically staying completely offline.  However, I did set the DVR because a non-Christmas related Lifetime premiere is going to be a rarity from now through December.

When I got home this morning, I promptly watched Your Family Or Your Life.

What Was It About?

David Meyer (Alexander Carroll) is a former alcoholic who is now a successful attorney.  His work has led him to discover some illegal shenanigans concerning Erica Hearns (Angelica Bridges).  Hoping to say out of prison, Erica sends Ed (Eric Michael Cole), the world’s most incompetent hitman, to kill David.  Ed manages to make David’s death look like a suicide but David’s widow, Kathy (Jennie Garth) is not convinced.  For that matter, neither is David’s stepdaughter, April (Luca Bella).  Kathy’s best friend, Michelle (Alexandra LeMosle) has some suspicions as well!  Like I said, Ed’s not very good at this.

So now, Ed and Erica have to figure out a way to silence all of the people who don’t think that David committed suicide.  Fortunately, for them, they’ve got an inside player.  Little does April suspect that her boyfriend, Damon (David Gridely), is actually one of Erica’s relatives!

What Worked?

Jennie Garth is just the greatest!  Depending on how old you are, you either know her primarily from Beverly Hills 90210 or What I Like About You.  This film had a 90210-style plot with a What I Like About You attitude and it was fun to watch Garth do things like beat up a burglar with a baseball bat.  Garth brought a lot of energy to her roll.

Angelica Bridges was entertaining as the villain.  Her frustration with Ed was wonderfully performed.  When she realized that Ed had basically screwed up a very simple murder, I think anyone who has ever been a supervisor could relate to her frustration.

The mother-daughter relationship between Kathy and April felt very realistic, especially when it came to Kathy’s immediate dislike of Damon.  That might be because Luca Bella actually is Jennie Garth’s daughter.

What Did Not Work?

I regret that the film made it clear, from the start, that David had been murdered.  I would have preferred a more ambiguous approach, one that left you wondering if David actually had been murdered or if maybe Kathy really was just seeing what she wanted to see.

I also regret that the film did NOT feature the following dialogue:

“Your family or your life!”

“I’m thinking about it!”

“Oh my God!  Just Like Me!” Moments

I also keep a baseball bat near my bedroom door, just in case I ever have to use it.  I don’t think I could wield it as decisively as Jennie Garth does, though.

Lessons Learned

If you’re going to hire a hitman, spend a little extra and get one who is actually good at his job.  Otherwise, things just get too complicated.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #203: Designed to Kill, a.k.a. Deadly Runway, a.k.a. Fatal Fashion (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Channel and I watched a movie that has many names.  When it was originally released on Netflix last year, I believe it was called Deadly Runway.  According to the imdb, it’s also known as Fatal Fashion.  Lifetime aired it under the title Designed To Kill.

Well, no matter which title you want to go with, I watched it!

Why Was I Watching It?

How can I review it without watching it first?  This isn’t rocket science, people!  Beyond that, though, I was in the mood for a good Lifetime melodrama.  Of course, right now, Lifetime is currently only showing Christmas movies from here to eternity.  So, if you want to see the type of Lifetime film that we all know and love, you’re only place to turn is the Lifetime Movie Network.

What Was It About?

Basically, it’s a murderous remake of Pygmalion!

Oh, you doubt me?  Well, consider this — Jennifer Higgins (Linsey Godfrey) — is given a job at the local high school, teaching a class about fashion.  David (Joshua Hoffman) ends up in her class, hoping that he can practice his skills as a photographer.  David is awkward, shy, wears glasses, has no fashion sense, and his hair is almost always a mess.  Jennifer takes one look at him and decides to prove that she can turn anyone into a super model.  Next thing you know, David has new clothes, a new haircut, and a new career.  He almost gets a new girlfriend until Jennifer gets jealous and pushes her off a ledge.

See, there are a few differences between Jennifer and Henry Higgins.  Some of them are obvious.  Jennifer is a woman and is flirtatious.  Henry was a man and a bit of a prick.  But perhaps the biggest difference is that Jennifer Higgins has a tendency to get obsessed with her models and, as mentioned above, Jennifer’s willing to kill people.

Anyway, David is enjoying his new life as a model and Jennifer is enjoying being his mentor but then it turns out that David’s friend, Caitlyn (Ellen Michelle Monohan) has model potential as well!  How will Jennifer handle it when Caitlyn and David are soon appearing on covers together?

What Worked?

Oh Hell, it all worked.  This was so over the top and fun and melodramatic that there was no way not to love it.  Linsey Godfrey was wonderfully insane as Jennifer Higgins and Monhan and Hoffman made for a very adorable couple.  This movie was a lot of fun.

And before anyone starts nitpicking this film or debating whether or not the plot fully made sense, allow me to remind you that if you’re taking a film like this seriously, you’re doing it wrong.  This film was designed to deliver pure entertainment and that’s exactly what it does!

What Didn’t Work?

It all worked!

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I related to Caitlyn, mostly because we both have red hair, bad eyesight, and a low tolerance for alcohol.

Lessons Learned

Henry Higgins could have been worse.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #202: Erasing His Dark Past (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Channel and I watched Erasing His Dark Past.

Why Was I Watching It?

So, October isn’t even over yet and Lifetime has already decided that they’re going to start with the Christmas movies!  That’s right — the next two months are just going to be Christmas cheer on my favorite channel!  And listen, I love Christmas.  You know that about me.  I love any holiday that involves me getting presents!  But seriously, it’s too soon for the Christmas movies!

So, instead of watching a Christmas movie last night, I switched over the Lifetime Movie Network and I got caught up with Erasing His Dark Past.

(Don’t worry, everyone!  The holiday spirit will possess me soon and I’ll happily be watching every Christmas movie on Lifetime!)

What Was It About?

David (Michael Welch) has a dark past and he needs to erase it!  What better way to do that than to disappear after a plane crash?

Everyone thinks that David is dead but his wife, Karen (Lauren Fortier), has her doubts.  Those doubts turn out to be justified when she discovers that David had all sorts of weird financial stuff going on.  By vanishing (or dying or whatever he did), he’s basically left Karen broke and in a lot of trouble.  Was David just bad with money or was it all a part of his criminal scheme?

And could it be that David may have had a ….. second family!?

What Worked?

Micheal Welch did a good job as David, I thought.  He came across as being sinister enough to fake his own death and charismatic enough to pull it off.

Fans of the classic film To Kill A Mockingbird will want to keep an eye out for Scout herself, Mary Badham, playing a sympathetic bank employee.

What Did Not Work?

There have been several Lifetime films about husbands faking their own death and running off to their second family.  In fact, it’s become a bit of cliche that you should never trust a husband in a Lifetime film.  Unfortunately, as a result, there was really no shock in discovering that David wasn’t actually dead.  We knew it was going to happen as soon as he first appeared.  To a certain extent, their predictability is one of the things that make Lifetime films enjoyable but still, it was a little bit to easy to see the direction in which Erasing His Dark Past was heading.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

This was one of those rare films where there really weren’t any “Oh my God!  Just like me!” moments.  I’ve never been married so I’ve never had to deal with a husband faking his own death and running off with all of my money.  I guess I should consider myself lucky in that regard.

Lessons Learned

If there’s no body, there’s no proof.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #201: Mommy’s Little Princes (dir by Curtis Crawford)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as soon as I got home from work, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Mommy’s Little Princess!

Why Was I Watching It?

Why not?

No, actually, I did have a very specific reason for watching it.  Mommy’s Little Princess was a film that I watched earlier this year but, for whatever reason, I didn’t review it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t record it either.  So, by watching it yesterday, I was able to reacquaint myself with the film before reviewing it.

Because that’s what ethical reviewers do!

What Was It About?

12 year-old Lizzy (Sarah Abbott) is haunted by the memories of her abusive mother and a fear that she’s not that special.  In order to make Lizzy feel a bit better about herself, her adoptive mother, Julianna (Alicia Leigh Willis), decides to send away for a DNA testing kit!

When the results are returned, Lizzy discovers that she’s a little bit French, a little bit English, and a whole lot German!  In fact, she’s even descended from German nobility!  Soon, Lizzy is walking around and telling everyone that she’s a princess.  She covers an entire wall of her bedroom with pictures of European nobility and tells everyone that it’s a collage of her real family.

Unfortunately, not everyone is impressed with Lizzy’s heritage.  Some of them even go so far as to suggest that being distantly related to royalty is no big deal.  Those people, Lizzy kills.

What Worked?

I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed the irony of Lifetime broadcasting a movie about someone being driven crazy as a result of obsessing on royalty when Lifetime is also the same network that has, so far, done one movie about William and Kate and two movies about Harry and Meghan!  It was kind of fun, like Lifetime was saying, “Don’t spend too much time living in a fantasy and, by the way, stick around for the next royal wedding movie….” Mommy’s Little Princess felt wonderfully subversive.

Sarah Abbott did a really good job as poor, psychotic little Lizzy.  You feared her but, at the same time, you felt sorry for her.  As a flashback to her time with her birth mother showed, Lizzy really never had a chance.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked!  This was a fun little Lifetime melodrama and it had just the right amount of self-awareness.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

As far as DNA goes, I’m primarily Irish, Italian, and Spanish.  As far as I know, I’m not related to royalty.  If I was related to royalty and in line for the throne of some country, I would totally hold it over everyone’s head.  Seriously, I would find a way to sneak it into every conversation.  “You’re going to the store?  Hey, could you pick me up some a tiara or something because, after all, I am royalty and I could have you executed.”  My friends would probably get tired of hearing about it.

So, all in all, I guess it’s good that I’m not yet a part of the royal family.

Lessons Learned

DNA tests only lead to pain and misery.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #200: The College Admissions Scandal (dir by Adam Salky)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, like all good Americans, I watched The College Admissions Scandal on Lifetime!

Why Was I Watching It?

How could I not watch it!?

Seriously, Lifetime has been advertising the Hell out of this thing for the past few months.  I haven’t been able to turn on the channel without seeing a few hundred commercials for The College Admissions Scandal.

Add to that, I have to admit that this is the rare national scandal that I’ve actually been following.  When the news first broke that certain rich people had cheated and broken the rules to get their child into a good college, my initial reaction was, “Well, isn’t that what a parent’s supposed to do?”  Of course, I made the mistake of saying that on twitter and I immediately ended up with a bunch of finger-wagging nags screaming at me about how it wasn’t something to make a joke about and how it wasn’t fair and blah blah blah.  They sure told me!  Of course, it didn’t really change my mind or anything but at least everyone else got to feel like they had stuck up for truth and justice.  That said, I think my point remains valid.  Don’t get mad at the parents for taking advantage of the system.  They’re just trying to look after their kids.  Instead, get mad at the colleges that were willing to be bribed.  Get mad at a system that’s been specifically set up to be corrupted.  The solution is reform, not necessarily imprisonment.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I kinda love the fact that, while Felicity Huffman basically begged everyone to forgive her, Lori Loughlin pretty much said, “Fuck you, I’m not apologizing for anything.” That’s the spirit!

What Was It About?

Penelope Ann Miller plays a character who is definitely not Felicity Huffman, just as Mia Kirshner is playing someone who is definitely not Lori Loughlin.  That said, like Miller and Loughlin, they’re two wealthy mothers who are concerned about getting their children into the right school.  Fortunately, Rick Singer (Michael Shanks) is willing to sell his services as an admissions consultant.  Pay him enough money and he’ll fix your child’s grades, improve their test scores, and even make them look like athletes!

It sounds like a great plan!  Of course, it’s also illegal and, even as the parents are looking forward to sending their kids to Stanford and Harvard, the FBI is looking forward to sending the parents to prison!

What Worked?

Miller and Kirshner were both well-cast and Kirshner was especially good as the mother who definitely was not Lori Loughlin.  Michael Shanks was also wonderfully repellent in the role of Rick Singer.

It was fascinating to watch the lengths that Singer and the families went to remaking their children.  My main memory of this film will probably always be Sarah Dugdale standing in front of a blue screen and kicking a soccer ball so that she can later be photoshopped into a picture of an actual soccer game.

What Did Not Work?

Where were the real people!?  Yes, Rick Singer is a real person but why were all the parents fictional?  I assume for legal reasons.  For instance, Lori Loughlin has yet to be convicted of anything and I imagine that Lifetime didn’t want to get on the bad side of either Felicity Huffman or William H. Macy by portraying them in the movie.  But seriously, it was hard not to be disappointed by the lack of real world gossip.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Hmmmm …. I got into college legally but then again, I also didn’t go to an Ivy League school, nor did I ever particularly want to.  To be honest, it didn’t really occur to me that college was actually that important until my senior year.  That’s when I was like, “Oh, I’m actually supposed to do something with this art history degree….”

Lessons Learned

If you want to send your child to a good college, get them interested in soccer early.

Lifetime Film Review: The Madam of Purity Falls (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the first rules of moving to a new place, avoid any location that has a potentially ironic name.

Seriously, don’t live near a virgin spring.  Don’t move into the house at the end of Charity Drive.  Avoid Peaceful Meadows at all costs.  Happy Street?  Don’t even think about it.  And Purity Falls?

Listen, there’s no way that moving to a town called Purity Falls is a good idea.

Still, that’s what Nicole and her children do in the Lifetime film, The Madam of Purity Falls.  The recently widowed Nicole (Kristanna Loken) even gets a job as the guidance counselor at Purity Falls High School!  Since the family is still struggling to come to terms with the death of Nicole’s husband and the children’s father, the hope is that a new home can help them move on.  Younger sister Justine (Sloane Avery) is willing to give it a try.  But older brother Jason (Trevor Stines) is resistant from the beginning.  Even meeting and befriending Chad (Jonathan Bouvier) doesn’t seem to help with Jason’s angst.  Of course, Chad is soon found floating in a swimming pool, dead.  Can you believe such a thing could happen in Purity Falls?

Trying to adjust to a new school, Jason joins the wrestling team and even meets a girl who seems to like him.  But how can Jason go on a date when he doesn’t have a car!?  And how can he get a car if he doesn’t have any money!?  Hey, wait a minute.  Didn’t his new neighbor, Courtney (Olivia d’Abo), mention that she had some odd jobs that she needed done around the house and that she would be willing to pay him to do them?  At first, Jason is reluctant to work for Courtney but one of his fellow wrestling teammates assures him that working for Courtney will be the greatest experience of his life.

Courtney has a nice big house and a lucrative job selling organic cosmetics.  Everyone in Purity Falls seems to know her.  She puts Jason right to work, paying him for landscaping and sex.  Realizing that there’s a lot of money to be made from being a suburban prostitute, Jason agrees to become one of Courtney’s “boys.”  Soon, he’s sleeping with almost every frustrated housewife in Purity Falls, making all sorts of money, and getting into all sorts of danger!

Of course, Nicole is curious as to why her son keeps sneaking out of the house and then staying out for so long.  And some of Jason’s clients are into some things that make Jason uneasy.  And, of course, there’s the fact that people are dying.  Hmmmm …. being a suburban prostitute might not be as easy as it looks!  But is Jason already in too deep to escape his new life?

The Madam of Purity Falls is an enjoyably over-the-top in execution as it is in its name.  This is one of those films where everyone lives in a nice, big house and they’ve all got nice, big secrets to hide.  Don’t take the film too seriously.  Just enjoy it for the melodrama and the sex and for Olivia d’Abo’s enjoyably villainous turn as the Madam of Purity Falls.