The Perfect Husband

How many times have I seen this movie. Must be 500 of them at least! Og course I have seen even worse movies but holy crap they can't make movies like they did back in the Years from ca. 80 '-97'. After that it have gone downhill. And When the actors look stupid you can't take the movie serious either. 2,5 Rating is correct after my opinion. It's like the director's today can't think anymore!! The old movies early 90's are Incredible compere to these new Life Time movies. The location,plot, camera Work and dialog and acting back then was 100 times better then these New movies today.

Lisa meets widowed author Ty Kellington and it's not long before they marry. At first, everything seems fine, but then Ty begins to resent all intrusions to their relationship and attempts to eliminate them. He's suspicious and possessive and is even unhappy about Lisa's pregnancy. When Lisa hurts her ankle during an argument, she becomes a prisoner in her own home. Ty becomes more and more controlling, unbalanced, and dangerous.

Caught this one late at night after a long day of work and couldn't sleep. This one didn't disappoint as it was slower and the spouse didn't loose his sh- until mid-way through the movie allowing for character development. Tracy Nelson is sympathetic as the ensnared wife and the husband wasn't just the one-dimensional psychopath. The actor who played him's performance was nuanced and you genuinely see that crazy-evil thing going on in his head. I'm actually going to go a step further and actually recommend this one (I don't normally do that with LMNs) but only if you have nerves of steel. The second half of the movie is very nerve-wracking and you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat when as the wife becomes injured and is seeminly rendered helpless.

We have seen the cliché plot (woman marries perfect husband but turns out to be a psychopath) many times.

In the 70s, 80s and 90s we were inundated with this theme in the true stories category, in which the story was almost always told one-sidedly from the female perspective and in which the perpetrator was usually portrayed in a very two-dimensional way without a satisfactory backstory.

This was of course to demonize the perpetrator as much as possible and to portray the victim character as sympathetically as possible.

But why not some more backstory for the perpetrator? That could give the story a lot more depth and make for a much interesting film.

Here too it is actually very cliché. The fact that the couple gets married after 4 months does not make it much more believable.

Of course this is a 13 in a dozen thriller, but still, there were moments in the film where I thought: boy, is this all you could come up with in terms of text dialogue? Such as in the dinner scene in which TY shows up uninvited and they ask him how he comes up with his characters in his books.

Funny that Michael Riley plays this role, I had seen him play alongside Brian Dennehy in To Catch a Killer and he played really well in it, even though Dennhy was superior as gacy.

This movie had two big strikes against it from the get-go.

First of all, whoever thought of putting Michael Riley and Tracy Nelson together ought to have their head examined. They are the most mismatched pair I've ever seen. On-screen chemistry was zero, and the disbelief that they would ever fall in love kept me from getting into the story.

Secondly, Sophie Gendron was just horrible. Not only is her acting completely wooden, but her lips take up half the screen. She unfortunately shows the consequences of cosmetic surgery addiction, and has done it to the point of not looking normal anymore. Granted, she's not as bad as Joan Rivers, but she's lost any natural look. (And after her last scene, I felt so guilty thinking oh good, she won't be in any more shots!)

On the up-side, Michael Riley was creepy enough to believe he could play Ty. And Thomas Calabro was the only actor worth his salt. I enjoyed every scene he was in.

My suggestion: tape it, and watch only the Thomas Calabro scenes. Then go out and rent a movie where he has more camera time.

For made-for-TV, this is better than average, though it doesn't bring anything original to the screen. Michael Riley does a good job of switching from the perfect to not-so-perfect husband in an instant, and his character is what keeps you watching. The rest of the acting is a bit bland, and instead of fearing for our protagonist, you identify more with our villain.