(Some Spoilers) Surprisingly effective made-for-TV murder mystery that keeps it's audience in the dark as to who the killer is until the last ten minutes or so of the movie. Even though it seems obvious to who the killer is almost from the start.
Young Justine Essex, Charlotte Ross, is being influenced by stories her friend, or former best friend,Ashley, Amy Moore, is telling Justine about her boyfriend Ryan, David Lasher. David is having an affair with her now best friend Vicky, Kimberly Hopper. The three girls having a showdown, over Vicky's betrayal of Justine with her divorced mom Susan ,Katey Sagal, out on a date with her old high-school flame Eric ,Jamerson Parker,ends up with Vicky falling to her death in the woods.
It's obvious from the start that it was both Justine and Ashley who were responsible for Vicky's death chasing her out of Justin's home to the place where she was later found dead. As the movie goes on there are things that seemed to have been overlooked by the police and the audience that shows that Vicky's death was a lot stranger and far more sinister then you would of at first thought.
Making a pact with each other Ahsley and Justine swear to keep what happened the night that Vicky was killed to themselves and stick to their story that they were never there with Vicky in both Justine's home and in the the woods. The police slowly start to pick their story apart and Justine ends up, due to the overwhelming evidence against her, being indited for Vicky's murder. It's then when we start to realize there was a lot more going on with Vicky's love life then we were at first thought to believe.
It's found out after the autopsy that Vicky was three months pregnant and that she kept a daily journal that kept referring to her boyfriend, and future father of her baby, simply as the letter "R"? Was that to mean Ryan Justine's boyfriend? Ryan confronted by Justine about his supposed affair with Vicky denies that he had nothing more to do with Vicky then just give her a kiss much less have a relationship with her that resulted in Vicky becoming pregnant. Were also told that this mysterious Mister "R" wanted Vicky to have an abortion but she refused; could that have been the reason for her murder?
Ryan had gotten a full scholarship to college and if it were reveled that he got a girl pregnant it would have had it revoked.Could that have been the reason that he, if he did , murder Vicky? With all the evidence of Vicky's murder pointing to Justine it seems to be an open and shut case for the local District Attorney to convict. It then comes out that Justine's mom Susan is involved romantically with the police detective on the case Eric Reilly,Jamerson Parker, and the case is thrown out of court. Still the the suspicion that Justine murdered Vicky is still fresh in the minds of the people of Clovis especially Vicky's parents Dr. Gilmore and his wife Elaine, Linda Pierce. Getting together with Ryan Justine goes out to the murder scene in the woods and finds a numbers of items that were overlooked by the police; both Justine & Ryan find Vicky's car keys and that her body was moved some five miles from where she supposedly fell to her death.
The evidence leads both Ryan and Justine to this empty cabin that was earlier discovered but somehow the evidence there overlooked by Justine and her mom Susan Essex where an audio tape was found purporting to be that of Ryan dedicating love songs to Vicky. Can it be the same Ryan that's Justine's boyfriend and who's with her alone In the woods and very possibly Vicky's murderer?
While all this is happening Justine's mom Susan Essex unknowingly comes across the real murderer of Vicky back in town which not only puts her life in danger but exposes the real and sick motive for Vicky's murder which is about as shocking a revelation as any good script writer could have dreamed up; a real stunner.
