Por siempre mía

My wife and I are suckers for a good true-crime, thriller & or "who-done-it", so when she picked this from Amazon Prime for us to watch, I was game.

As much as we love a good crime drama, I quickly realized that this was nothing like a good crime drama.

The acting and directing was awkward and cheesy. It was like watching an 80s episode of Murder She Wrote.

I'm not a particular fan of the way these Mary Higgins Clark adaptations are handled by Grosso-Jacobson, but I love a mystery and I love Lesley-Anne Down, so I checked out this one. She's gorgeous as usual, no surprise there. The lovely Lori Haller, who has done so much television in Canada, was on hand too.

Down plays a radio psychiatrist who becomes involved with trying to find out what happened to a young woman some years earlier, in trying to help the mother comes to terms with it. In reaching out to her viewers, a pattern emerges, and soon, it's realized that a serial killer was meeting women on cruises and killing them.

I did figure out the killer - for some reason, though these TV movies give you plenty of suspects, they have a way of telegraphing the killer to the viewer.

Okay movie.

Dr Susan (Lesley Anne Down) is a practicing psychologist who also hosts a radio program. Naturally, the talk show tries to help listeners with personal problems. One day, Dr Susie hosts an author who has written a book on women who disappear. Also a doctor, this man talks of lonely women who are vulnerable to preying gentlemen. As a part of the show, a lady calls in and relates a story from a cruise she took. Separated from her husband at the time, "Karen" says a handsome man romanced her at various departure stops along the cruise and gave her a ring inscribed with the words YOU BELONG TO ME. In secret, she was supposed to leave the cruise and meet him in Algiers. However, her husband called and begged her to return. So Karen never went to Algiers. BUT, Dr Susan is also counseling a mother whose daughter disappeared from a cruise and who received the same ring, found with her luggage. Wow! Could Karen meet the Dr and bring the ring? She tries, but is pushed into traffic, envelope snatched from her hands, and is in a coma. More witnesses bring more death. Dr Susan works hard with Detective Tom to find the killer. Among the suspects are the author, the grieving mother's lawyer and the husband of Karen. Meanwhile, a rich philanthropist takes an interest in beautiful Susan. Will they find the evil man? This strong film version of Clark's great novel has great suspense, fine performances and lovely scenery. Best of all is Down who is enchanting as the leading lady. You belong in front of the screen so arrange to view this fine mystery flick fans!

You Belong to Me has some good bones to it. It started off well with enough mystery and intrigue built up from the start. How did those 3 women disappear? However I felt the underlying motive and how the murderer got away with it was all rushed. Why did he do what he did, how did he do it and get away from it? If the murders happened on a cruise, then how did he not get recognised by others around. Also the dodgy lawyer and the motive for his actions was never fully explained. What was his angle and what was he up to?

After building all this suspense they rushed through the final moments so there was no great payoff and pulling it all together in this mystery.

I don't know the story behind PAX picking up the distribution TV rights (or at least now showing) to/a bunch of Mary Higgins Clark TV movies.

You Belong to Me is one of the better ones. There is one scene about 10 minutes in that sets up the main characters (2 sisters, and a possible rich lover the two will me interested in). The one problem I have with the scene and the film is that just previous we see a foldout and hear talk of a cruise. The scene also appears to be on a cruise and unless you listen very carefully, the setting kind of throws you off track (i.e. was that a flash back I just saw?)

Suffice it to say, the story is told strait forward and dispite thinking you know the killer all along, a neat red herring is thrown in.

The ending isn't a complete surprise (since there are really only say 7 possible murderers (i.e. only 7 men in the picture with any screen time and you can basically not count the 2 store owners)), but the story balances the line between giving you enough clues to follow the story and not enough clues to totally figure it out.

If you are a fan of Mary Higgins clark, you may be disappointed that the movie has a TV look and you may wish for a big screen treatment of some of her work, but in terms of mystery you won't be disappointed.

Rating: 7