A Deadly Adoption

Not a Will Ferrell fan of his blockbusters. But I really appreciate most of his experimental work from this era. The non-spoiler here is that they never break the "Lifetime format" while including every made-for-TV thriller tripe. So it is a Straight-faced satire that is entertaining on it's own. Fun to watch. You can't help but crack-up at many of the close-ups of Will Ferrell's "straight-face".

Worth seeing, because I cannot think of anything else like it. Until Frequent Collaborator James Franco would also experiment with the genre with the "Mother, may I sleep with Danger" remake.

This is just a recommendation review. Because, none of these experiments were a lasting success, and not on physical media. Anyone who appreciates this Lifetime love letter film should seek out Ferrell's "The Spoils of Babylon" & "The Spoils Before Dying". Both fairly unknown with a big cast. Ferrell also appeared in James Franco's "Zeroville", a 1970's Hollywood love letter which nobody liked or saw for some reason. These little gems all got lost in streaming-era over-saturation.

Maybe the 2023 writer/actor strikes will last forever, and all this "lost content" will premiere again.

If you watch Lifetime movies of the week you know they tend to be overwrought, supposedly true life melodramas with a cookie cutter story.

The script and acting are no great shakes.

A Deadly Adoption could had gone for the parody route like Scary Movie, Austin Powers or Naked Gun films. Instead they have de-constructed the typical Lifetime film and made a better version of it.

The film has the usual tropes and clichés with just a hint of a knowing wink here and there. As one character states:'I found an unopened box of chocolate today. You know the dangers of diabetic ketoacidosis.'

The biggest difference is that this television movie of the week has two A list cinema stars. Will Ferrell plays a financial management guru with a string of successful books.

Kristen Wiig is his wife who sells organic food in market stalls in their small town. They have a five year old daughter Sully to whom they are overprotective towards especially as she is diabetic.

Right at the beginning we see Wiig falls over from a dilapidated boat dock into the river which results in a miscarriage. Some years later as the story progresses they meet Jessica Lowndes who is homeless and giving her baby up for adoption however she is not all sweet and innocent and her path has crossed with Ferrell before.

Ferrell and Wiig play it straight. Ferrell also has what looks like a fake beard and recites the corny lines likes it is Shakespeare. You get a hint that he might be sexually attracted to Lowndes as he looks down her cleavage and Lowndes has a hoot playing the femme fatale role.

Yet it is surprisingly zippy, it moves along at a fast pace, it has a fair amount of cheesiness, bad stunts and ludicrous plot developments.

Still there is only so much you can do when you try to polish a turd.

There seems to be a lot of people struggling over 'the point' of this movie. Is it a spoof or is it just a regular cruddy Lifetime movie?

With a plot that is so tiresome that I'm not going to bother detailing it, I say it's undoubtedly the latter. This is no spoof and Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell are merely playing a standard Lifetime script totally straight. They're not winking at the audience and I'd be very surprised if this was written specifically for them. I imagine it was an off-the-peg script that was lying around in the Lifetime offices.

And *that* is the joke. That's why Wiig and Ferrell were keen on doing this. Everyone else involved was just doing their regular job, safe in the knowledge that the film would be seen by a far wider audience than their usual output because of the curiosity aspect. The currently awful rating on IMDb will be of no surprise to either star and I doubt either of them will be losing any sleep as it drops even further.

So... the point? To get lots of viewers. To give Wiig and Ferrell a bit of fun. To get people talking.

And they succeeded.

But should you watch this movie? No, because the joke isn't for anyone's amusement other than the two stars - and a joke that has to be explained is really no use to anyone.

This is a slightly dull movie that happens to star two A-list performers - and that's hardly unique.

Having never heard of this film prior to watching and also not realizing that this was a "Lifetime television" movie until after seeing several comments and looking further into the film.

Found it quite different and actually enjoyable. It is predictable and the "twists" are quite obvious but given the situation it's a solid film to pass the time.

We see Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig (two comedians) in a rather serious dark film and at points we suspect that the film to be a joke or a parody but they seemed to play it straight throughout.

A Deadly Adoption is a short enough film where everything seems to happen rather quickly, so it doesn't necessarily drag. For a Lifetime movie starring two big actors it's solid.

"I really think another baby will bring the old Robert back." Robert (Ferrell) and Sarah (Wiig) are happily married and expecting a new baby. When Sarah has an accident and they lose the baby their lives are changed. Years later Sarah thinks that if they can adopt Robert will return to his old self. They find a pregnant mother who is willing to give them their baby and allow her to move in with them. This is when the obsession is revealed. First of all if you don't already know this is a spoof of a Lifetime movie. This is not a Scary Movie over the top spoof but it does poke fun at the Lifetime movie genre. Ferrell and Wiig play this straight and that is what makes this work. The script and the acting are purposely horrible and just about every cliché is in this. The movie is predictable, but what Lifetime movie isn't. I will admit this wasn't as funny as I was hoping, but what it is is a perfectly done send up of this genre and for that reason this is worth watching. Overall, a serious spoof of an extremely melodramatic genre. I enjoyed it. I give it a B-.