Til Ex Do Us Part

I'm reviewing this as a Lifetime movie, not an Oscar contender. This film was a fun watch with plenty of twists and a couple decent kills. This isn't the type of film to be taken that seriously, so sit back and grab some snacks and a drink and enjoy the ride.

Started watching this because I thought the director was Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire). Seconds into the movie I realized that either Danny Boyle was slumming it (no pun intended) or there are two directors named Danny Boyle. This hot mess of a movie was in fact, directed by Danny J. Boyle, not Danny Boyle. But the worst thing about this movie isn't the directing, it's the godawful script that seems to have been written by a robot being fed Harlequin Romances and Hallmark movie scripts. We were transfixed by the awfulness of it. Skip it. Do literally anything else with your life, but do not watch this movie.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie that is this bad in quite so many ways. It really is kind of spectacular. As fkopun-27429 put it, it might just be the worst movie I've ever seen. It's almost worth watching for that reason.

First, the script is truly awful--the dialogue, especially. The characters seem to be explaining a film rather than actually participating in it. But the director has to take equal blame. As each scene begins, the characters seem to be standing in place, waiting for the cameras to roll. As if they were in the midst of doing nothing (except trying to make a movie) each time we come upon them. I think my favorite scene was where one of the characters is at home, looking in a mirror (in her living room) applying makeup. She steps away from the mirror, revealing the reflection of a mysterious intruder. Only he's standing about two feet behind her (he must've been *really* quiet!) However, she only seems to notice him when she goes back to looking in the mirror. This is followed by the most exposition-laden conversation possibly ever recorded on film. Or whatever they shot this on.

There's a weird, static quality to every scene. And I don't mean static in a stylistic, Wes Anderson kind of way. This lifeless feel is aggravated by the movie's unnaturally uniform lighting.

But there are also some truly bizarre visual moments in the film, too. There's one scene in which a woman is out jogging at night, then glances across what appears to be an open field. CUT TO what she supposedly sees: her neighbor's house. And through the living room window we see two (uniformly lit) people having a conversation. Seems straightforward enough. Only it looks as if they used some kind of optical effect to paste a rectangular section of an interior scene of the two people talking onto the outside of the house. Everything is out of scale, and it looks as if someone chainsawed a hole in the house so that we could watch two (uniformly lit) giants chatting.

There are a number of scenes that are marred by small flubs or physical errors that would have caused any other director or editor to discard that scene, but they've been left in because, I'm assuming, that was the only take they had.

The music is obviously just lifted from some library of canned mood moments.

It's as if everyone involved in this film was told, "Okay, people, we've only got four days to write and shoot a feature movie. I know that's not much time, but we're just going to have to do the best we can to get through this thing. If anything goes wrong, we'll fix it in post. Let's get to it!"

I had the impression that the actors were all quite capable, but they're struggling with the awful dialogue and the badly staged scenes. I felt sorry for them.

I gave it two stars because I thought the live sound was pretty good.

Kyle, supposedly a kind, caring, honest person, goes off the deep end when his neighbor says she is pregnant and the baby is his. He believes her from the start and doesn't bother with details that level headed people would have demanded, simple things like: evidence that the baby is his, proof that she is pregnant (and showing a pregnancy test is not proof- she could have pulled it out of someone's garbage.) Instead, he immediately goes to his wife (with whom he is getting ready to get back together) and tells her about it AT HER OFFICE DURING THE WORK DAY!

And Emma (Kyle and Sophia's beautiful daughter) never seems to get too upset when she finds our about the "baby" and the trouble it is causing. She is more concerned with getting a boy to like her and getting a convertible for her birthday.

Besides Kyle there seems to be some other dumb ones in this movie.

The only reason to watch this would be to marvel at the stupidity built into the characters.

A couple reconcile but later finds out when they were temporarily separated a neighbour he slept with tells him she is pregnant.

The neighbour lady gets attacked and gets text messages threatening her. She is staging things to make his wife look like she is after her.

Not too different from the typical Lifetime wacko thriller but it's a moderately diverting watch.