Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret

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

Oh my goodness this was so cringe and poorly written. The piece feels like a student film and there's no sensitivity or skill to the writing and direction of scenes and how they play. Characters are not individuals, you can hear the same voice from the writers each time. The dialogue sounds so on the nose and cliche. The music plays awfully and feels like it was pulled from a royalty free library and placed carelessly - it sounds like The Bold & The Beautiful. The actors had potential but really needed a competent script and competent director which sadly they had neither. The cinematography isn't terrible, visually it looks passable, but the shot selection is so boring and vanilla. The subject of sexuality isn't treated in a sensitive, appropriate or clever way, feeling more like the writers idealised fantasy. The dialogue is so poor it taints the film with comedy, the bad kind. Sadly, there is no depth or substance here. It feels and plays like a rough 1st Draft of a script that needs some serious polishing, though I'm not sure the filmmakers (Writers and Director) carried the skill or taste to see it through or give it improvement.

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.

The 1997 film "Fatal Attraction" was nominated for 6 Academy Awards. This has been called the real life version for the 21st Century; sadly as a TV film it can't win an Oscar, even more sadly is the fact that it "is" the real life version. It probably wouldn't in any case because in spite of the excellent portrayal of "femme fatale" Arias by Tania Raymonde, like "To Catch A Killer" (about John Gacy) this was a film that was made with a higher purpose than mere entertainment.

Although Jodi Arias was convicted of the murder of Travis Alexander only last year, it cannot be said to have been made entirely in indecent haste because the crime happened in June 2008, but it was released only a month after her conviction.

The dialogue aims for realism rather than dramatic effect; the line "dildo with a heartbeat" was in fact used by Travis. As undoubtedly was Jodi's line "delete it and it's gone forever", except that it wasn't. Did she really expect to get away with murder?

She was indeed his dirty little secret, and he could have treated her better, but did a man who had never so much as slapped his lover deserve to die at her hands like this?

The only charge that may be made against this film – apart from the above one of indecent haste – is that it is bad taste to portray a real and recent murder so graphically. Far worse though was the release of the actual crime scene photographs, which could have been avoided even for a trial broadcast live on the Internet. In the UK this would not have been allowed, and Travis would at least have been granted dignity in death.