Secrets of a Marine's Wife

This is based on a true story. I live in the town where it happened. They did not depict marines accurately. She was not killed in Joshua Tree National Park, but in the desert east of 29 Palms. They did not film in the desert and it was obvious it was not our area. The acting was ok.

I actually had no idea this was based on true events until the ending credits. Had it not been, then it wouldn't be anything close to creative writing for this genre, as it was very predictable. But the fact it is based on real events, you'll tend to cut the story some slack, and have sympathy for those who needed it.

The directing and cinematography was decent, and the acting for the most part convincing. The 84 min runtime was decent with the adequate pacing. I just wish Lifetime would tone down the constant and overbearing typical "Lifetime-style" background music. Nevertheless, an enjoyable one-time watch.

I'm a big fan of LMN movies and usually grade them on a curve. This is actually just a good movie period. No curve needed. 9 stars.

I am a huge fan of Mom. I always thought of Sadie Calvano's performance there a little sub-par. She's definitely improved greatly since then. She shines here and steals the show with some very fine acting. (Well, she has to. She's the star.) Will be interesting to see if she can move out of the LMN genre onto the big screen.

The style of showing the after event interviews mixed in with the storyline can be tricky to pull off. I've seen it overdone on LMN and elsewhere. They didn't do a lot of it here until close to the end and it worked well.

As noted by others, a big goof is the cool-looking 70's haircut on Chris is nothing you would see an active marine wearing. But this hardly ruins the movie.

Unfortunately, a disturbing subject that few will describe as Dull... But, in fact a reality that needs to be on screen.

So the story is the usual rubbish that's churned out on TV for people that enjoy staying at home all day and eating chips. It doesn't really bring anything new to the table, we've seen this so many times before.