Betrayed: A Story of Three Women

Okay, I usually love the movies on Lifetime because they are heartwarming and emotional. This movie was neither.

A husband cheats on his wife with her best friend's daughter. Drama ensues. The best friends are at each other's throats. The acting is pretty bland throughout the entire movie.

The main problem with this movie is that it alludes that the wife will probably end up taking the husband back. WHAT??? Never, not in this lifetime (pun intended) do you take a man back who cheats. It made the wife seem desperate and pathetic.

I didn't feel anything for any of the characters in this film. They all could have died in a massive fire and it wouldn't have mattered to me.

Also, the ending of this movie was so terribly stupid I just couldn't believe it. One of the worst films I have ever seen.

Well, what can you say? Betrayed: A Story of Three Women is about as prototypical of a Lifetime movie as you could possibly expect. I'll try my best not to spoil all the details... but honestly, does it really matter? All of these story lines are essentially the same. Here's the scenario - an attractive middle-aged housewife has the perfect life... she's married to a wealthy, attractive and successful businessman, has two wonderful children and lives in a huge house in the middle of an upscale neighborhood. What else could you possibly ask for, right? Well, her perfect lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when she finds out that her husband is sleeping with her best friend's 20 year old daughter, who's home from college. And really, that's all the plot you need. Light the torches and start beating the war drums, because it's man-bashing time!

I'm not sure how many Lifetime masterpieces I've watched over the years, but I think it's safe to say that I can count the number of times ( on one finger ) where the doting housewife is actually the culprit and not the victim. More often that not, instead of heart-warming, positive films about love and relationships, we're always treated to the deepest, darkest fears of every American woman - her husband/boyfriend/uncle/brother/"insert your own male presence here" is a slime ball of the highest degree. Obviously, this is what women want to see, or else the network wouldn't keep churning this garbage out on a weekly basis. It's pathetic, really... and sad. In the movie, one of the characters points out that middle-aged husbands sleeping around with college girls, and best friends punching each other out at the supermarket is, "completely normal.. and just a part of every day life." Sorry, hon.. maybe it's considered normal behavior in Orange County, California but not where I reside.

The only people I could recommend this film to, are angry lesbians or desperate housewives who want to spend an afternoon sulking around the house and reconfirming their belief that men are scum.

Sometimes you have to approach a story in the spirit it is offered. This film makes no grand claims, and although it purports to be about three women, it is actually about two,Amanda Nelson,played by Meredith Baxter and Joan Bixler, played by Swoosie Kurtz.At 106 minutes the running time is a quarter of an hour longer than the classic 90 which permits plot anomalies in the interests of pace. Nonetheless the double hander that the two women frequently play works.

Amanda's stereotypical upper middle class world and family is an unambitious setting, understandably she is not impressed when her best friend, Joan's, daughter beds her husband.However there is a chemistry and dynamic which works between the two of them "Cagney and Lacey" style.The third woman, Joan's daughter Dana, has a curiously underwritten part much of which i suspect was left on the cutting room floor. Amanda's two sons have some cleverly written cameo roles and the erring husband Paul Nelson has almost a walk on part.

So what makes this film work? Its not about marital infidelity, it is about the loyalty between two women as friends.the message that friendship is important and that sometimes people let you down resonates throughout the tale.There are some fairly corny set pieces, but the film always lifts when Amanda and Joan are on screen together. there is even an elegiac moment in the "kitchen scene" at the end when Joan implores Amanda to discard the hopes and dreams of the past for the reality of today.Too few films these days are narrative driven,and this deserves praise for a solid effort in that regard.

Though "Betrayed: A Story of Three Women" has its faults — it's VERY much to the Lifetime formula (just read the synopsis in TV Guide and you could practically write the script yourself), starting with a hot soft-core porn scene between the illicit lovers and at times getting so melodramatic I wondered if I should turn it off and watch something a little more understated, like "Il Trovatore" — I'm posting here because I really resent some of the sexist attacks on the movie. I'm a man and men ARE like the philandering husband in the movie, or at least enough men are to make the broad outlines of the story believable. (And if you'll look at the credits again you'll notice that the director and writer were both male.) I liked the film — it wasn't a world-beater and I found the ending WAY too optimistic, but it was well-crafted and did what it set out to do. Also, decent roles for middle-aged actresses are rare enough one can see why Meredith Baxter and Swooosie Kurtz wanted to do this one; they tore into their cat-fight scenes like starving tigers descending on a piece of raw meat.

I thought Meredith Baxter Birney and Swoosie Kurz were great, as well as the other actors.It is a story about two old friends and one of them has a daughter who is having an affair with the other friend's husband. A serious, but very funny scene in the parking lot after Meredith finds out about the affair between her friend's daughter and her husband. She's wheeling her grocery cart full of groceries to her car,when Swoosie spots her and wants to talk with her and resolve the situation. Swoosie takes and holds Meredith's groceries to get her attention. Meredith then tried to grab them back from her and they crash all over the ground. You have to watch it to appreciate the humor. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it's too bad the other people commenting didn't rate the movie very highly, but they have a right to their opinion, of course. I think it deserves a much higher rating then they gave it And it's odd that one would actually watch it again when they didn't care for the movie. The movie had some very humorous moment considering the seriousness of it. I personally thought it was a very good movie.