LAUGHABLE LIFETIME: Identity Theft of a Cheerleader (2019)

Director: Christie Will Wolf
Writer(s): Barbara Kymlicka
Starring: Maiara Walsh, Karis Cameron, Jesse Irving and Naika Toussaint

Now here we go! Just when it seemed Lifetime movies were starting to get better, we have a nice “throwback” feature to ground us back in reality; this is a perfect example of what the channel does best: make movies that simply just shouldn’t exist.

Identity Theft of a Cheerleader follows Vicky Patterson, who, as a teenager, failed to make the cheerleading squad. Flash forward ten years. She now works at what appears to be a mix between a Goodwill and a Sam’s Club (it’s even called something along the lines of “Big Box Store”) which, as we all know, is a way to show that she is “unmotivated” and “unsuccessful” in a movie world (because no one can be successful or happy being anything less than a six-figure salaried exec), and lives with her equally unmotivated, hideously creepy boyfriend, who loses money gambling for a living.

Through what can only be described as “fate”, she finds the dropped high school ID card of a fellow co-worker--who just so happens to be a cheerleader. She uses this moment of inspiration to…um…go back to high school, thus gaining a second chance to make the cheerleading squad. At thirty years old. Because that’s where she thinks her life went wrong. No, seriously…that’s the basic plot. And she’s not above resorting to dirty tactics, like using cooking oil to make the captain fall off the top set of bleachers (?), to see her ultimate plan through.

But it’s not just about the cheers—no, she wants the full experience of everything she feels she was deprived of, from wallowing in popularity, to being the leader of the squad, to sleeping with the popular jock. Which she does, despite the fact that the jock’s best friend, Heather, is the one that took an initial liking to Vicky and urged her to try out for cheer in the first place. And despite the fact there’s clearly sparks between the jock and Heather, even though neither one have ever discussed their mutual attraction to one another, as if each one is waiting for the other to make the first move.

Despite its brilliantly awful plot, ID Theft is done in by one of the most egregious of offenses possible in media: It has absolutely zero likable main characters. Heather is the best of the bunch, but she’s just too goodie two-shoes (and stupid) to rally behind. For example, there’s a scene where her, a friend, and Vicky are all getting ready to attend a party. While the other two girls are getting ready, Vicky sneaks off and opens a locked liquor cabinet, drinking half a bottle of vodka. When the parents come home, they automatically accuse Heather of doing it—and she never once suspects Vicky, even though she was the only one that logistically could have done it. And are we really supposed to get upset that Vicky slept with Heather’s non-man, since she is too much of a pussy to go and tell him how she feels? Sorry, but while that’s definitely a slimy and shady thing to do to a supposed friend, he’s technically fair game, and at least Vicky has the balls to go after what she wants…even if it is in a legal gray area where she’s, you know, not only not in high school, but almost twice as old as he thinks she is.

Meanwhile, Vicky’s current boyfriend is grade A sleazeball, and I’m not really sure why his character exists, or even what we’re supposed to think of him. He’s clueless, lazy and apathetic (at one point even using her own money to buy her a birthday gift), but most of the same things could also be said for Vicky, making it unclear whose “side” we’re supposed to be on. (A perfect scene that encapsulates this is when Vicky, freshly laid-off from her job and now attending high school, urges her good-for-nothing boyfriend to do something “productive”.)

His sole shining moment is the (brilliant) scene where he finally starts catching wind that something isn’t quite right with his girlfriend, leading to the obligatory scene where he follows her to see where she’s actually going, when she’s pretending to be at work. There’s just something perfectly hysterical in this sequence when, much to his surprise, she’s not daylighting as a high-end escort, or sleeping with drug dealers to get her fix of life-ruining drugs, or secretly having an affair with a married man, or any of the other sordid, low-grade hijinx you would typically expect to find in a Lifetime drama: Instead, she’s pulling into high school in a cheerleading outfit and pecking her high school boyfriend on the lips.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a murder in there somewhere, and of course, her true identity is finally discovered in the end; we even discover the “reasoning” behind her high school obsession, and although it’s a pretty well-worn trope (hint: it involves her mother!) I must admit it’s kind of (genuinely) sad when you think about it…but mostly it’s still just weird and pathetic, especially given the ridiculous lengths she goes to accomplish her delusional dream.

Identity Theft succeeds in being entertaining drivel, but despite a couple moments of unintentional brilliance, it doesn’t come anywhere close to capitalizing on the perfect absurdity of its title. Though I suppose with a title so succinct, how could it?

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• “But you couldn’t make Dad stay,” Vicky to her mom after she goes on and on about herself, and how successful she’s been in life; a truly biting, unexpected zinger.
• If, for whatever reason, you ever find yourself wanting to go back to high school, enrolling is as easy as filling out a request online, then telling the superintendent that you forgot your photo identification.
• Want to look ten years younger? Just cut your hair and give yourself bangs.
• It’s much easier to fit in with high schoolers as a thirty year old, when all the other high schoolers around you are played by people in their mid-20s.
• For being a movie about cheerleading, there are very few actual cheers.
• You know the writers are trying too hard to make a character likable if they are so nice, they can’t even bring themselves to badmouth their teachers.
• Movies always seem to have non-copyright infringing names for their fake social media sites and search engines, and this one delivers two classics: Spyder Finder, and Face Bubble. Who would ever sign up to a social media site named Face Bubble?!
• One of the best fall-down funny lines in Lifetime movie history: “What, you’re a teenager now?!” as delivered with incredulity by Vicky’s boyfriend after catching her secretly going back to high school.
• One of the scenes that eventually lead to Vicky’s downfall—of all things—is mispronouncing the word “meme”, which no one under the age of 60 has ever done.

RATING: 6/10

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