Writer(s): Everhart, from a story by Samantha Shear, Michael Shear, and Dave Hickey
Starring: Helena Mattsson, Leah Pipes, Nichole Galicia, and Ryan Carnes
Wow…in ten years, will we look back on 2019 as the
“breakout” year for Lifetime movies? Sure, they’ve been around for a couple of
decades now, and been “popular” for much of that time, but I would imagine (and
hope) that most of their appeal has been from people who love to laugh at the
straight-faced absurdity of their increasingly-bizarre plots, and idiotic
titles (exhibit A: this one).
Lately, though, there seems to be a rather alarming trend
threatening to muck all of that up: actual talent has been seeping in to more
and more of these projects. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and we’ve been
blessed with enough good luck to pick all of the good ones out of 2019’s
releases. But when even a movie called Mommy
Group Murder can actually be pretty good, I would say there’s a good
chance the talent is rolling through all of them.
Leah Pipes (a career in porn is never too far away with a
name like that) plays Natalie, a woman who suffers from postpartum depression
after giving birth to her baby. Her hunky husband, Ryan, seems to be too busy
with his new career to handle a crying child, and so she is left to her own
devices, struggling to maintain the façade of happiness while balancing the
needs of her child, and mounting feelings of loneliness.
All that changes when, through a rather horrifying (read:
actually hilarious) accident involving a runaway stroller headed for a body of
water, she meets Grace, a blonde woman who eventually invites her to join her
“mommy group”, which is just her and two other mothers, in various stages of
unhappiness, who lean on each other for support. There’s Roz, the token black
woman whose husband is curiously never seen, and Maria, a nurse who suspects
her husband, Tony, is cheating on her.
Despite following the Lifetime formula for the most part,
this one actually seems to have enough self-awareness to throw in some red
herrings: by the midway point, we really had no idea where it was headed.
Sure, in hindsight it’s still the same ol’ linear Lifetime murder mystery, but
there are enough twists and turns and unexpected surprises that it’s worth a
watch…for about three-quarters of it, anyway.
Unfortunately, once the typically overprotective Natalie
gets so obsessed with finding answers that she leaves her baby at home—with the
back door left ajar (because apparently she doesn’t have an extra set of keys
and can’t wait for her husband to get home)—that’s when it reverts back to the
expected collection of groan-inducing clichés. It really feels like the final
twenty minutes were written and filmed by someone else entirely; gone is the enticing unpredictability, in favor of a by-the-numbers psycho-stalker finish that, by
the time you get there, delivers exactly what you know it’s going to, and
nothing else. It’s a shame it has to end on its weakest note, especially
considering it had quite a bit going for it before it hit the wall.
In what seems to be the new par for the course, the cast is
uniformly strong, but special kudos must be granted to Leah Pipes, who carries
much of the early picture on her shoulders. Considering the whole first ten or
so minutes consists of her going through her daily routine, looking sad and
crying a bunch, it could have easily been a laughingstock from the start, but
she gives it her all, lending some surprising credence to her character. (The
intense cheesiness of the slow-motion “runaway stroller” scene notwithstanding,
but that’s not entirely on her.) Ditto
for Kate Mansi as Megan, who has a couple scenes requiring her to break down,
and does so believably.
While the guys don’t have the same level of acting chops,
nor the same level of emotional requirements, they manage to be an attractive
bunch, giving those Lifetime-obsessed women something to marvel at as the story
develops. As is usually the case, it’s the uniformly solid cast that carries
the story from point A to point B and, for the most part, prevents it from
devolving into (easy) self-parody.
Again, if it weren’t for a below mediocre ending, this would
have been a solid contender as one of the best Lifetime movies we’ve seen; as
it stands, it will just have to settle as an above-average entry that is worth
a watch if you’re bored.
RATING: 6/10
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- We saw this about two weeks ago, and I didn't take my usual set of notes; it's amazing just how little I remember of this entire experience.
- The runaway stroller scene has to be seen to be believed--it's peak Lifetime.
- When viewed in hindsight, the story is too obvious, but credit to the cast and crew for doing their best to sell it.
- The titular murder scene is surprisingly bloody for this kind of fare.
- The marketing for these movies is very inconsistent: some seem to get full-length trailers and talk show appearances, while others (like this one) are confined to :30 trailers on Lifetime's Facebook page.
TRAILER
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