Tori Barban | Through the Shattered Lens

Years ago, Kathy Waters (Emily Alatalo) escaped from her abusive husband, taking her young son Noah with her. Now, Noah (Sam Ashe Arnold) is a senior in high school and a talented composer. The school band even plays one of his compositions at a football game and everyone in the stands applaud. It reminded of those old episodes of Degrassi where Marco would write some overwrought performance piece and all the students would respond by going, “Yeah, Marco!”

Unfortunately, Kathy and Noah are not getting along as well as they used to. They’re fighting and arguing constantly. Kathy is overprotective. Noah is …. well, Noah’s kind of a creep. Noah is always complaining about how his former best friend Ethan is now more popular than he is. (Ethan plays football. Noah …. composes orchestrual music. You do the math.) Ethan is mad because Noah is now going out with Ethan’s ex-girlfriend, Maddie (Tori Barban). At one point, Tori has to duck into a bathroom so she can throw up. This is a Lifetime film and that means you don’t throw up unless you’re pregnant and trying to keep it a secret.

Kathy is a real estate agent. That’s not a surprise as selling houses is right up there with owning a bakery or being a mommy vlogger as far as careers in Lifetime movies are concerned. One morning, she gets a notification that someone has entered one of the empty houses that she’s selling. Going to the house, she discovers the remains of a wild party. She also finds Ethan dead in a nearby shed.

Noah becomes the number one suspect. Soon, someone is spray-painting “MURDERER” across the front door of Kathy’s house. Kathy’s friends are refusing to talk to her. Detective Summers (Puja Uppal) is asking questions. Noah claims that he’s innocent but even Kathy begins to have her doubts after she discovers just how angry Noah can get. Noah’s father was abusivie. Did Noah inherit the violence gene?

As I mentioned earlier, Noah is kind of a creep and it is easy to imagine circumstances in which he could be guilty. The fact that Lifetime has lately featured several films featuring violent teenage boys also might lead one to suspect that Noah’s the killer. Well, fear not. This is a traditional Lifetime film and that means that Noah is not the murderer. Instead, he’s just an obnoxious teenager who needs to treat his mom with more respect. I will not spoil the movie by revealing the identity of the killer. That said, you should be able to guess who it is because there’s not that many people in the movie.

“Everyone Has Something To Hide!” the title announces and, as far as this film is concerned, I guess that’s true. Considering that Noah’s a musician, they could have made just a few adjustments to the script and called this movie While My Guitar Gently Weeps. As for the film itself, it suffers from a lack of likable characters. (When I say that Noah’s a creep, I mean he is really a creep!) But the film does deserve credit for fully embracing the melodrama. The film has it’s flaws but it still held my attention for 88 minutes.

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime film, The Preacher’s Sin!

Why Was I Watching It?

What else was I going to watch? The Democratic debate? Not likely…

Seriously, though, everyone knows how much I love Lifetime! Plus, the title of the film promised a sinning preacher and Lifetime has a pretty good track record when it comes to sinning preachers.

What Was It About?

Evan Tanning (JR Bourne) is a successful and popular preacher. He has his own radio show, where he gives advice on how to raise a family. Much like Will Ferrell in A Deadly Adoption, he is popular on the book tour circuit. As the movie opens, he has just signed a contract with Bill Traggert (Bill Lake) and his show is about be nationally syndicated. Sure, Bill might be a little bit sleazy but it looks like everything’s perfect in Evan’s life…

Except, of course, it isn’t. Evan has just discovered that he has an illegitimate son (Demi Oliver) and, once Bill finds out, Evan finds himself being blackmailed. Add to that, Evan is the legal guardian of his niece Jamie (Allie Gonino), a rebellious teenager who has recently been arrested for driving drunk. When Jamie gets arrested a second time, Evan struggles to try to figure out how to deal with her.

What Evan doesn’t realize is that Jamie was set up by Bill’s evil daughter, Tinsley (Stephanie La Rochelle). When Tinsley escalates her bullying of Jamie, Evan is forced to take a stand and confront his past.

What Worked

The film was well-acted and it definitely had an intriguing first hour. JR Bourne did a good job as the preacher and so did Allie Gonino as Jamie. (Add to that, I really liked Jamie’s hair.) There’s been a lot of bitchy mean girls on Lifetime but few of them have been played with the amount of sociopathic panache that Stephanie La Rochelle brought to the role of Tinsley.

What Did Not Work

So, here’s the thing: with a title like The Preacher’s Sin, I was expecting the film to feature the preaching sinning. I mean, okay — he did have an extramarital affair but that was before he even became a preacher. He never knew that he had a son and, once he found out, Evan went out of his way to accept and help him out..

To be honest, a better title for the film would have been Tinsley’s Sin because Tinsley was the one who kept doing the wrong thing. As a lot of people on twitter pointed out, the final 30 minutes of the film — which were pretty much dominated by Tinsley’s sins — felt like they were happening in a totally different movie.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Oh my God, I so related to Jamie! It’s not just that we were both rebellious teenagers who had to deal with jealous haters. It was also the fact that she was judged for having better hair than everyone else. I have red hair and Jamie had green hair. Judging from this movie, the only thing more difficult than being a redhead is being a greenhead.

Lessons Learned

It’s not easy being green.