Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret

I understand the negative reaction to the portrayal of the victim. He was brutally murdered and Jodi said very hurtful words to his family at the trial but this movie was trying to address the relationship before that jarring event.

The writers were depicting a relationship where the couples annihilate each other. Had Travis never met Jodi, he would have married a nice Mormon girl and had a normal life and Jodi might have had more conventional relationships. But together they both needed and consumed each other. I don't know if this is true to real life but it made for a great LFM movie.

She wanted both an intense sexual and stable relationship, she was drawn to his self-confidence and moral upbringing. He wanted to maintain his standing in the Mormon Community but craved her intense sexuality like a Heroin addict. Was he using her? There was some ambiguity there. It's human nature to want to choose a side but I found myself cheering for them and cringing when it turned bad.

A good example of this dynamic was the barbecue, she really tried to fit in but you see her insecurity leading to a possessiveness and his peer's disapproval behind their smiles. The sexual chemistry between the two actors was very convincing. Tania Raymonde was great to watch.

'Fatal Attraction' is an old story. Few cases have been chronicled, the most well known being Carolyn Warmus in the early 1990's. It too was in the national limelight, she was found guilty of murder, and not one but two movies were made telling the story. But as we know, the Jodi Arias story was more compelling because of the unexpected, lurid details of their deviant personal sanctum. No court case has ever presented to the public what should be rated X. All in all, "Dirty Little Secret" does the best it can do. There were only two people who could tell the real story, but one is dead and the other is a chronic liar. I'm sure there are many who will agree that Jodi Arias is a better actress than the woman who played her in this film. Thus there is no way a film can portray this story with pure accuracy. 'Artistic license' is unavoidable, and why this film struck me as an attempt to stay as close to what the producers knew at the time it was filmed. "Dirty Little Secret" may have its faults, but it's definitely worth seeing.

This was BRILLIANT. Both actors nailed these parts and they were both very difficult to pull off. But they were utterly convincing and I think this TV movie was smashing. Not at all clichéd and stuck to the facts that I know of the case, having followed it, from London, for the last two years.

Jesse Lee Soffer not only got Travi's charm and obvious boy next door magnetism, but he also successfully reminded us that Travis was a flawed character, certainly sexist, perhaps ambitious at the expense of others, but most of all bound and brainwashed by his particular religious brand of zombieism, Mormonism. Also, it was clear from the show that the two of them had a very very powerful connection that went beyond the physical. Travis liked Jodi for quite a while, and intermittently throughout the saga. We like her too, in this reconstruction. We consider her point of view. At times we are totally on her side even.....until, of course, that fateful, epic, bloody road trip.

Production values are serious and classy and very effective. This is no regular daytime TV true story. This is a highly accomplished piece of work and everyone involved can be very proud of what they achieved. Im looking forward to seeing these two lead actors in other material.

I'm very fussy about I watch and what I enjoy and I give this an unreserved 10/10

Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013)

* (out of 4)

A new crime tale overtook mainstream America so naturally Lifetime would turn it into a movie. Jodi Arias (Tania Raymonde) begins a torrid sexual affair with Travis Alexander (Jesse Lee Soffer) and soon she becomes obsessive and kills him. Am I the only person in the world who finds Travis to be a bad guy? I certainly don't agree or condone what happened to him but at the same time I must admit that I found him to be a jerk by the way he just wanted to use this woman for sex, keep her in the background and hidden from his friends and pretty much just use her whenever he needed her. Sure, thousands if not millions of guys do this to women but most of them don't do it to someone crazy, which is obviously what Jodi was. This Lifetime movie is pretty awful all around and largely because you really don't learn anything about either people and we're left with a story of unsympathetic characters and certainly no one to life. Director Jace Alexander takes a fairly interesting "case" and turns it into a pure case of boredom because there's no energy, no life or anything else going on here. The entire film seems to run on longer than the real-life trial because we just keep getting scenes that add up to nothing. This here is more like a low-rent version of FATAL ATTRACTION but without the performances, tension or style. The movie has all sorts of problems including how it goes all out to paint Travis as this clean-cut Mormon who did nothing wrong and just wanted to help people. We get at least two scenes where Jodi sexually comes onto him while he turns away. Yet, minutes later, we see them two in a steamy sex affair where he's the one using her. You can't have it both ways. Even worse is the fact that these scenes trying to make Travis look clean are done in such a way that you really can't help but laugh at them. Both Raymonde and Soffer are good in their roles but sadly they're just not given much to do. When one watches Lifetime you really don't expect quality but I must say this here is without question one of the worst products they've'e turned out.

By dirty I mean the director and producer expect us to sit around watching this slut type prance around making off she's a winner. WRONG. She's not that terrific looking, too much hair, no body to lure anyone with and has this pouty mouth (like her lower jaw extends her upper.) Let's not talk of the plot as there are so many similar ones of the past and so much better. Like the leading vamp could act in those. This one just poses like she thinks all men are attracted to her looks. AGAIN WRONG.

You can also predict she will kill all those in her way. The same as before. I just get tired of looking at her with her dipity-do hair style. So, in summing this trash up, and I won't mention names to protect the rest of the unfortunate cast, this is a horrendous film with a bad leading lady, a stupid plot and not for any seeing eyes to sit through. Amen.