After All These Years

As a fan of Wendie Malick, I was definitely interesting in watching this Hallmark film. She plays a woman (Audrey Brandon) whose estranged husband is found murdered in her house. When she becomes the prime suspect, she decides to go on the lam and solve the crime herself. As a fan of television crime shows, she figures it shouldn't be very difficult.

Malick does a good job and the tone of this film is kept light. She provides some voiceovers, presenting the action from her point of view.

The rest of the cast is adept at mystery with a light touch. My favorite is Ona Grauer, who plays the part of Christine Boll, a woman with ambiguous intentions.

This Hallmark comedy thriller pays tribute to Billy Wilder.

Audrey Brandon (Wendie Malick) is celebrating her 30th anniversary with her businessman husband Michael who later confesses to cheating on her.

He leaves her for a younger maneater Christine. A few months later Audrey finds her husband dead in her kitchen with a knife sticking out.

Audrey wonders what her husband is doing dead in the kitchen when he had left her. The police treat Audrey as the main suspect especially as her finger prints are on the knife as she tried to pull it out.

Audrey goes on the run as she tries to clear her name. She contacts her late husband friends and associates.

Audrey suspecst Christine who has a thing for rich older men. To Audrey's surprise she learns that her husband always cheated on her.

After All These Years is mildly diverting thanks to Wendie Malick's energy. She makes the movie much better than it should be.

It is a little daft and corny as Audrey goes through the suspects but it is a surprise that the cops did not catch her much earlier.

I thought Audrey (Wendie Malick from my hometown of Buffalo) was great, but I thought the acting of her female suspects was terrible!

I read a lot of reviews and I'm never as critical of acting as most. I see acting complaints in a lot of films where I'm not that picky, just enjoy the story , and find myself saying "wow what are you talking about ??"

But I found the poor acting / over-acting to be a distraction in AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. So I noticed. Enough to write this review.

I love a good murder mystery, and this story did keep my attention, and I didn't guess the suspect. I am a huge COLUMBO fan and I enjoyed her subtle reference to Columbo with one "Oh just one more thing" comment. And I also couldn't help notice that Wendie Malick looks great for her age and has a smokin' hot body that I would rate a 10 , even though I only rated the movie a 6.

Excellent acting from generally not known or not well known performers would probably be enough to endorse this TV movie, but it is also surprisingly well written.

I say "surprisingly" because writing generally has deteriorated in what we generically call "Hollywood," but "After All These Years" is just one more example of quite high quality movie producing.

This was just -- 2 May 2021 -- presented on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, a channel to which I'm becoming increasingly addicted. I swore when I moved into my new apartment where there is a TV set and a cable connection I wouldn't waste my time watching.

Ha!

I have in fact spent far too much time in front of the tube, and one reason is such thoroughly enjoyable films as "After All These Years."

I'm sure it will pop up again and I strongly recommend you watch.

This is kind of cute, thanks to the performances of veteran stars Wendie Malick, Gregory Harrison, and Andrea Martin.

Malick plays Audrey, who, after a wonderful anniversary party, finds out her husband wants to leave her for another woman. They split up. One night she comes downstairs and finds her husband has not only entered the house, but he's dead with a knife in his stomach. Immediately a suspect and a long-time viewer of Forensic Files and Snapped, Audrey takes off, determined to find the murderer.

Many of the characters are named after characters in Billy Wilder films, such as Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Stalag 17, Kiss Me, Stupid, and The Apartment.

It's light, it's amusing, and Gregory Harrison looks great.

No likes