Betrayed by Love

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

Betrayed By Love (don'tya just love these titles?) is a little morality Lifetime MOW pointing out for the umpteenth time that it just doesn't pay for a girl to be too aggressive sexually (she always gets treated as trash) and of course that men are no good, your standard Lifetime theme.

Mare Winningham and Patricia Arquette star. Winningham of course is excellent. She has charisma and she can act, and her blue collar, nonglamorous image goes well with the commercials. But Patricia Arquette (not to be confused with her sister, Rosanna, whom you may have seen in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)), is not bad. She plays an unbelievably sensuous poor white trash babe who knows how to surrender. (The sex in these Lifetime MOWs is a little less than explicit, but oh what they love to imply!) I saw her previously in Ethan Frome (1992), as Mattie Silver. She does the old "on her knees, her arms around his leg" number (so we can imagine what she'll be doing next) and lets him kick her around psychologically. "Based on actual events." What I love about that is you can just guess how far off they are from the reality of the real story. I could just see the personality of the woman played by Arquette, a sleazy, desperate bimbo; but of course Patricia Arquette is more like Marilyn Monroe, and you just know the real woman could never be one tenth as attractive; and the married FBI dude she seduces is in real life a sleazy loser himself of course, but in the movie he is a sophisticated handsome sort of guy.

In 1994 I taped this film because I knew that I would want to see it again and again. Patricia Arquette showed her great talents and made you feel sorry for her while she was being killed and thrown down a hill like a piece of garbage. She was very attractive as an informant for the FBI and the agent took advantage of her petite sexy figure and good looks.(But still loved his wife and kids!) Her sister tried to warn her about fooling around with a married man, but she just did not want to listen and got PG. However, nowadays, there would be no doubt at all as to who the father really was, with DNA and CSI experts, Murder Does Not PAY and Never WILL!. The FBI agent did a bad job of trying to pass the lie detector test and even turned to his Catholic Faith, but had a hard time going to confession. The only way they could determine what happened to the victim was a Cross that was placed around her neck by her loving sister. This is a true story which makes it very much like real life and the mistakes that young gals and guys make thinking the GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE!

True story of an ambitious young married FBI agent's affair with a woman who is involved with one of his first cases and her sister's fight to find her when she disappears. Everyone thinks she has run off and left her family and her anbusive ex husband but her sister knows this can't be true. But no one, especially local law enforcement, believes her. After her body is found, she eventually helps bring her murderer to justice against all odds. Great performances by a then unknown Patricia Arquette and by Mare Winningham and Steven Weber. Suspenseful tale of deception snd betrayal and the tragic downfall of the doomed lovers.