Avant de te dire adieu

Sean Young moves through the tense plot with the power of a piece of parsley on its way to a pasta dish. Squeaks when violent knife appears, squeals when a nasty grilling looks certain.

Absolutely meltdown of a great novel to a mushy leftover. A mysterious boat explosion,and who's left and who dunnit, leaves her role as the sleuth wife one that a good actress could have turned into a iron-clad knock-out. Instead the mystery is how a tight Mary Higgins-Clark plot could be reduced to badly- knitted sweater - full of holes,easily unraveled and shrunk beyond belief.

Sean Young stars in a real career killer, a Canadian TV movie, "Before I Say Goodbye," based on a Mary Higgins Clark novel. The film also stars Peter DeLuise Lloyd Bochner, and Winston Reckert. Reckert once starred in the series "Adderly," which was shown on American late-night TV in the '80s.

Young plays Nell, soon to be a candidate for her grandfather's (Bochner) seat in Congress. She's very close to her grandfather, having lost her parents in a plane crash when she was young.

Nell's husband Adam (Christopher Shyer) isn't happy about her decision to run, on top of which, he's a bad architect. Sadly the day the couple fights about her getting involved in a campaign, and later that day, he dies in a boat explosion. It wasn't an accident.

Nell is contacted by a woman whose husband also died in the explosion, Lisa Ryan (Ursula Karven) - she has found $50,000 among her husband's belongings. Was it a bribe, hush money? Neither woman knows, but they set out to get some answers.

There is a psychic (Claudette Mink) involved with both Nell and Lisa, and she is pretty convincing as she contacts Adam in a seance, telling Nell to get rid of his clothes. She donates them to the usual place, their church, but finds a safety deposit box key in one of his pockets. Then she finds a key for the same box in the home of Adam's secretary, Winifred, who was also killed. The search is on for Winifred's fiance, who might have some answers.

Just not good. Not only that, it's all over the place. The psychic, an investigation into bad business dealings, a property deal, a nefarious-seeming businessman, a run for Congress, everything but the kitchen sink.

I have to disagree with one of the reviewers who seems to be a fan of Sean Young. I'm not, and I'll leave it at that. However, I loved seeing handsome Winston Rekert.

This thing runs amok and finally ends, and the ending is pretty wild.

I'd skip it.

She's down to starring in run-of-the-mill made-fors on PAX. As another Mary Higgins Clark adaptation, the story is fine. Sean is a decent actress, so she comes off fine. The overall effect, however, is not something to write home about. It's the story of a woman who finds out after her husband's death in a boat explosion that all is not as it seems. She and another widow work to unravel the mystery. While I wouldn't expect anyone to seek this one out, it makes for OK entertainment on a slow night.

In the scene where Nell is telling Adam she is running for her Grandfather's seat in Congress, Adam gets angry and gets up to leave. Just as he stands up and then walks to where his jacket is you can clearly see that something is showing that should not be. The viewer can see that his fly is wide open and his underwear is showing. I am surprised that they didn't pick up on this when they looked at the daily's. Maybe now that I have pointed it out more people will watch this one to see if they can catch it. I would think with all the crew they have on a set someone would have noticed. Unless of course they all fell asleep during the filming. Over all this is not one of the better Mary Higgins Clark movies. I was disappointed in the this production. The book was much better.

I had read the book and just now saw the movie on Pluto. The book was a lot better. They cut a lot of things out for the movie and that just kind of ruined it. Although it was interesting to see the characters from the book come to life, there were too many differences.

In the book: Nell has a Great Aunt, Mac's sister, who doesn't appear at all in the movie. Her aunt is the one who introduces her to Bonnie instead of Bonnie randomly walking up to her.

Lisa Ryan didn't go with Nell to Winifred's apartment and Nell didn't send her to visit Bonnie. Mac sent his secretary who also doesn't appear in the movie.

Jed Kaplan never stalked Nell and he was not killed.

The part that bothered me the most is that the movie leaves you hanging at the end with regards to the election, something that was revealed in the book.

I could go on and on. I can understand that some things from the book weren't necessary but they changed too much of the story.