I screened the Lifetime movie "Fatal Memories," and despite its hysterical opening and bizarre main titles (in what IMDb.com would characterize as "crazy credits," the names of the cast and crew appear as parts of pictures hanging on the walls of one of the two houses around which the action centers, and the director's name, Farhad Mann, is emblazoned on the roof in an overhead shot), "Fatal Memories" actually turned out to be a quite good film, a high-tension thriller with a provocative central premise. It opens in a scene in the home of Marjorie Parker (Elizabeth McLaughlin), a retired college professor with two adult daughters, attorney Sutton Roberts (Italia Ricci) and April Parker (Magda Apanowicz). Sutton breaks a prized bowl and, as she's picking up the pieces, she's alerted to a commotion from outside. The commotion is a fatal stabbing attack on her mom, and when she comes upon the body April is holding a bloody knife. April is arrested by police detectives Whitaker (Shauna Johannessen) and Martin (Michael Ryan). The arrest is filmed by nosy, obnoxious videographer and hacker Luke Conner (Ryan Bell, who's the usual sort of nerd-cute guy Lifetime's — and most other people's — casting directors like for parts like this), who posts edited versions on the Internet that make April seem both guilty and crazy. She's crazy enough that she's put in a mental institution for a year or so (the Lifetime credit reads "One Year Later" but one IMDb.com reviewer cited other evidence in the film that two or even three years had passed) until she can be adjudged legally competent to assist in her own defense so she can be tried for her mom's murder, and despite the incredibly obvious conflict of interest her sister Sutton insists on representing her as defense counsel.
Sutton is insistent that April couldn't have committed the crime, and in order to jog her memories she takes April to various locations associated with their family in general and her mom in particular in hopes that April will remember something that will exonerate her and enable Sutton to figure out who the real killer is. At the same time, mysterious attacks start affecting the family, and Sutton takes a lot of her anger out on Whitaker, who seems to be there whenever something embarrassing happens to the family. It may not seem like that much in synopsis, but as written by Verge, staged by Mann and acted by an excellent cast — especially Apanowicz, who makes April's confused mental state all too real; she really has us believing this poor woman's brain cells are tumbling like clothes in a dryer, and she never knows what she's going to do next — "Fatal Memories" is a gripping thriller, making us feel for the characters and keeping us in suspense even though, as noted above, there are really too few suspects for the mystery aspect to be all that mysterious. It's a brilliantly done movie and one hopes that Farhad Mann and Magda Apanowicz in particular can go on to biggers and betters!
