Parker Stevenson | Through the Shattered Lens

After I finished watching Anne of the Thousand Days, the next film on my DVR was The Perfect Daughter. The Perfect Daughter originally aired on March 26th on Lifetime. According to the imdb, it was originally called The Carpenter’s Daughter but I imagine Lifetime changed the title so that it could fit in with films like The Perfect Teacher.

(Add to that, The Carpenter’s Daughter sounds like it should be another one of those films where Tom Hanks argues that Jesus survived the crucifixion and ran off with the Magdalene.)

Anyway, the perfect daughter of the title is Natalie Parish (Sadie Calvano). Natalie seems to have a great future in front of her. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s responsible. She has the grades to get into the Ivy League college of her choice. On top of all that, despite being shy, she has just been elected student council president!

Oh sure, not everything is perfect for Natalie. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She’s frequently insecure. She idolizes a mother that she’s never met and her father, Martin (Brady Smith), may be a hunky blue-collar type of guy but he’s also extremely over protective. He worries that Natalie will grow up to be like her mother, who apparently was not the saint that Natalie believes her to be.

Martin grows even more concerned when, while driving home one night, he comes across his daughter in the middle of the road. She went to a party, she got drunk, and she had sex with popular jock Sam Cahill (Reiley McClendon)! Martin freaks out and takes his daughter to the hospital, causing her nonstop embarrassment at school. He also demands that Sam be arrested for raping his daughter.

Of course, what Martin is overlooking is that Sam did not rape his daughter. As Natalie tells him, the sex was consensual. Martin is shocked but he’ll be even more shocked when Natalie reveals that she’s pregnant.

Complicating matters is that Martin is working for Sam’s father, the snobbish Bruce Cahill (Parker Stevenson). The film also suggests that Martin may be in love with Bruce’s wife, Julie (Meredith Salenger).

What I was wondering, as I watched the film, is why Natalie was chasing after Sam when Martin’s business partner, Nick (Johann Urb), was so much hotter. And he was also single! Seriously, Sam was a nice guy and everything but Nick epitomized this sort of sweaty, manly glory, the type of sexy that otherwise seems to be limited to the guys that you see in pickup truck commercials.

ANYWAY — The Perfect Daughter may sound like a typical Lifetime film but actually, it’s not. Though there is a little bit of melodrama towards the end, The Perfect Daughter is more of a character study of an overprotective father struggling to accept that his daughter is growing up. The story has a bit more nuance than the typical Lifetime story but, at the same time, the decision to tone down the melodrama comes at a cost. The Perfect Daughter is a well-acted and intelligent film but it’s not a particularly fun movie.

In the end, it’s okay but it’s no Perfect Teacher.

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original movie, His Secret Family!

Why Was I Watching It?

Last Friday, I not only cried and cried while watching the finale of Degrassi but I also attended a blue moon party that was held in downtown Dallas. Needless to say, I spent most of Saturday recovering and we all know that the best way to recover from a crazy night is by watching the latest Lifetime original movie!

What Was It About?

Oh my God, poor Haylie Duff! Earlier this year, she played a woman named Sarah who married a murderer in Til Death Do Us Part. In His Secret Family, she again plays a woman named Sarah and, once again, she is married to a murderer! Of course, in this case, her husband is not just a murderer. He’s got another wife, another family, and another really big house. It turns out that Sarah is actually the secret wife.

David O’Donnell plays the husband. When he’s with Sarah, he claims that his name is Jason Goodman. When he’s with his other family, he uses the name David Marcus. So is it Jason or David? Well, regardless of his actual name, he’s more than a little insane. When he realizes that it’s simply too expensive to support Sarah and their son, Brandon, David decides to both vanish and to frame Sarah for murder.

However, Sarah happens to be best friends with the detective (Parker Stevenson) working her case. Even though she’s a major suspect in a murder investigation, he allows her to leave town so she can go up to Santa Monica and track down her husband.

Oh, and did I mention that Brandon needs a bone marrow transplant? And that only David is a match?

What Worked?

This movie was fun in a “how much more batshit insane can this movie get” sort of way. It wasn’t just that David/Jason was a bigamist with rage problems. No, this movie also made his a sociopath who coldly refused to do anything to save his son’s life. Perhaps the film’s best scene was when Sarah confronted David about his secret life, just to have David calmly respond, “Do I know you?” David O’Donnell was obviously having a lot of fun playing such an insane character and, as a result, he was a lot of fun to watch.

Add to that, since David had two families, he also had two houses. And seriously, they were both totally to die for! One thing that I love about Lifetime movies is that everyone owns a big house and the inside of the house is always so incredibly clean and tasteful. For a hyperorganized germaphobe like me, a Lifetime house would be the equivalent of paradise. And this film had two of them!

What Did Not Work?

The whole film was full of plot holes and while I usually say that it’s not necessary for a Lifetime movie to make sense, some of the holes in this case were rather deep. For instance, I could believe that David would end up with two families. And I could buy that David would eventually realize that it’s cheaper to only have one family. But, with all that in mind, I never quite understood the whole point of David trying to frame Sarah for murder. David was already easy enough to hate without tossing in a random murder. If anything, David just seemed to making things unnecessarily complicated.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Much like Sarah, I often find myself driving to different towns and claiming to be a real estate agent just so I can take a tour of a nice house. It’s fun!

Lessons Learned

Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone.