Deceitful Dating

Watching this movie on Lifetime Movie Network, I finally realized why these LMN movies are mediocre at best: there are so many commercials that the effective running time of the movie is maybe an hour to an hour and ten minutes, so there's no time to develop a plot. Thus, things happen so quickly that it's hard to see how parts of the plot work together.

Early in the movie, Chelsea, the oldest daughter, laments to both Alice (the dad's new love interest) and Jillian (her late mom's best friend) that her boyfriend Derrick has been cheating on her with her best friend, Rose. Both Alice and Jillian tell Chelsea not to take it. Then, in the next scene, Rose - who has never been shown before in the movie, so the viewer doesn't know who she is - gets mugged. We learn who she is in the next scene, when Chelsea visits her in the hospital. Rose mentions she thinks her attacker was a woman because she was short and had long dark hair. That immediately makes the viewer realize the villain has to be either Alice or Jillian!

Chelsea does all this sleuthing to find out Alice isn't who she said she is (but there's a reason). We also find out Alice's ex-husbabd is murdered. Yet the murder is yet another disparate part of the plot - there is no scene, or appearance of the ex-husband; the viewer is simply told.

Chelsea continues her amateur detective work, finds the true villain, gets pursued by her, until a freak accident occurs which kills the villain cold, just as the father and the other woman come to Chelsea. The movie then has a cold end.

Lame-O.

More Lifetime. I have been on a roll lately due to not being able to concentrate.

So in this one, a widower starts seeing an attractive neighbor. However, there's more to her than meets the eye. When strange things start happening she falls under suspicion.

John Logan (Derek Hamilton) tries his best to parent his two daughters, and he is ably supported by his late wife's best friend Jillian (Lisa Marie Digiacinto).

The new neighbor, Alice (Christine Chatelaine) also is on hand. But who is she really? She is caught in a couple of untruths, and then her ex-husband is murdered.

Not too hard to figure out.

Logan (Derek Hamilton) is a struggling single dad to two girls, Chelsea (Karis Cameron) and Sophie, after recently losing his wife six months earlier. Alice King (Christine Chatelain) is the intriguing new neighbor. As she gets closer to Logan, Chelsea and family friend Jillian get more suspicious. And then the police informs them that her ex-husband suddenly turns up dead.

The ex-husband story should come in a lot sooner. Alice is not suspicious enough for too long. Maybe the angry ex-husband can show up at the door. There needs to be more back and forth. This Lifetime movie is doing a very slow boiling drama. It's too slow for too long.

The movie had a dark mood to it. Probably the filter used for filming, but it worked for the movie. There's no new ground covered here, but the writers played their cards close to the vest. Throughout the movie, you'll go back and forth btwn what you think may be going on, and you won't be surprised by the ending...but the movie got us there w/o the characters being too obtuse. This movie also makes the case for why people should TALK to each other. That much is clear throughout the movie, and some of what happens is the direct result of a lack of honest communication.

Didn't have a problem w/the title and it was ambiguous enough to not give anything away. Unlike "Engaged to a Psycho" or "Murder in the Vineyard" that were complete misdirects. One problem Lifetime has with their good AND bad movies is that they skate around behaviors that for the most part normal people would react to or question. There are a few instances of this in the storyline, and for whatever reason, they can't properly tell the story w/o giving it away. So they ignore. "I see dead people" totally spoils the plot of The Sixth Sense and isn't a misdirect, but you go through the movie and don't realize it until the right moment (if you caught on early in the movie, kudos to you). This is what Lifetime needs to work on. Giving characters little to no personality or not having characters question things is not a replacement for natural human reactions nor does it create an atmosphere for the audience to really see if characters are capable of things. I won't name any specific examples because the one that bugs me the most is a spoiler.

One distracting thing was that Chelsea (oldest daughter) always had a puffy coat or thick sweater/sweatshirt on indoors compared to everyone else. Maybe the actress was really cold wherever they were, but in the context of the movie, it looked strange in certain scenes.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and I would watch again if I needed background noise.

PS...some may think the movie dragged but Lifetime needs a balance of thrillers and the campy movies they mostly produce.

John is a widow with 2 teen daughters, Chelsea and Sophie. Alice, a single woman moves across the street. John and she have an instant connection but is Alice who she says she is? Chelsea is suspicious but should she be? You'll have to tune in to watch. This movie dragged and was a little uneven in terms of pace. It could have been better but it was OK. Watchable one time.