A Woman Betrayed

Beautifully-figured insurance agent Sarah Lancaster (as Gwendolyn "Gwen" Griffith) suffers from nightmares due to abusive old relationship. A single mom, she lives in Houston, Texas with outspoken six-year-old son Logan Lindholm (as Alec). Felled by a flat tire, Ms. Lancaster receives help from preachy passerby Drew Waters (as Ed Baker). The two begin a whirlwind romance, but Mr. Waters withholds some information...

Also involved is sneaky co-worker Natalia Cigliuti (as Sidney) and agile private investigator Bryan Mitchell (as David Wyatt)...

Since there is a high level of implausibility, they should have gone all he way and had mother Eleese Lester (as Ellen) uncover a secret, and pay with her life. She could have been given a health ailment, like a weak heart. "The Preacher's Mistress" is a perfectly cast, nicely directed (by Michelle Mower) and engaging TV movie. Alas, this one seems to have been rushed through post-production without ironing out some problems.

***** The Preacher's Mistress (11/2.13) Michelle Mower ~ Sarah Lancaster, Drew Waters, Natalia Cigliuti, Bryan Mitchell

The first ten minutes of this movie lead you to expect another very poor Lifetime movie - sluggish pace, wooden acting and embarrassing dialog. But things soon take a felicitous turn and the film ends up worth watching, notably better than standard Lifetime fare. Remember now, it's a Lifetime movie and certain heights will not be attained. That said, the plot turns out to be more layered than you might expect - usually it's a heroine and a bad guy, two characters interacting in a manner supposed to generate tension and thrills. Here we have 5 or 6 characters interwoven in a way that keeps your interest. The female lead's performance improves after the first 10 minutes and Natalia Cigliuti, playing a central character, proves herself to be a first rate actor (not actress - why call a female actor an "actress"?), far superior to the rest of the cast here. I was quite surprised to find myself fully engaged with the story. The other reviewers are right: the ending is a total bust - trite, unimaginative, implausible - as if the writer couldn't come up with a conclusion as interesting as the plot. As usual, the heroine cannot be left without a romantic prospect in Lifetime, so the story had to written with a character who could perform that function in the final seconds of the movie.

...LMN shortens their older movies to fit in a 90 minute time slot, as they did with this movie on 4/10/21. With commercials, that means they had to make cuts to the film to fit it into the allotted time frame. This happens fairly often; movies that are about 1.5 hours long, meant to run in a 2-hour time slot, with commercials, are edited to fit into only 90 minutes.

As for the movie itself, it's hard to give it a fair judgement since the cuts made the movie choppy, with some obviously missing elements.

But did I really miss much? I doubt it. This was a typical Lifetime movie plot, with a typically absurd ending. I just wish I could have seen the whole thing so I could criticize it even more harshly!

Struggling single mom who has nightmares of a past abusive relationship starts dating a guy who's too good to be true. I normally don't watch these types of made-for-TV movies. I prefer the lighter ones, like romantic comedies and Christmas movies. But I like Sarah Lancaster so I decided to give this a shot. As I feared, it's not very good. All of the twists are telegraphed far in advance. I mean, the promos for this and every synopsis you find online gives out major plot elements anyway but assuming you went into this completely oblivious to all of that, I still think you'll figure everything in this movie out at least 20 minutes before the main character does. Also they hammered home how hard up she is financially to the point that it became kind of annoying. In the first half-hour they couldn't go a full scene without this chick reminding someone that she's broke as a joke. And yet she lives in a nice house, drives a nice car, wears nice clothes, etc. It was unbelievable. Oh and the Value Mart conversation between her and her friend was hilarious to me. I think this was supposed to make us relate to Sarah's character and think "Wow, this woman has to shop at discount stores! She's like people!" It's pretty funny. The acting by all involved ranges from terrible to adequate. It's not like the material is challenging but I guess people strike out in softball, too. On a superficial note, Sarah is stunningly beautiful and Natalia Cigliuti is pretty easy on the eyes, too. So there's that.

THE PREACHER'S MISTRESS/A WOMAN BETRAYED (2013 TV movie) 2.6 out of 10 stars Time to Read: 3:20 min

BASIC PLOT: Gwen Griffith (Sarah Lancaster) does not have the best track record when it comes to picking men, a fact her mother, Ellen (Eleese Lester), never lets her forget. Gwen has a son, Alec (Logan Lindholm), from an affair with a married man, that ended tragically, and Gwen is determined to never let anything like that happen again.

She is much more cautious now, but both her mother, and her best friend Sidney (Natalia Cigliuti), are encouraging her to date again. So, when Gwen meets what seems to be the perfect man, Ed Baker (Drew Waters), she still takes things slow.

Ed's caring, considerate, and appears to be a gentleman, and to top things off, he's good with Gwen's son, Alec.

But sometimes, things that seem to be too good to be true, aren't true, and Gwen is beginning to realize Ed may not be what he appears. She discovers Ed has a wife, Kelly (Julia Barnett), and two children. To make matters worse, Gwen finds out Ed is not a pharmaceutical rep, but a mega-church preacher, in a nearby city. His wife knows about the affair, and instead of blaming Ed, she blames Gwen.

Gwen is beginning to realize there are dark forces swirling around her, and working to destroy her life. She needs to discern who they are, and what they want, before her whole world crumbles.

WHAT WORKS: *SARAH LANCASTER IS BELIEVABLE AS THE MOUSY, NAIVE SINGLE MOTHER Sarah Lancaster is believable as Gwen, the timid introvert, without many friends, or suitors. She does a passable job as the vulnerable single mother, with lots of problems.

*NATALIA CIGLIUTI DOES HER USUAL GOOD JOB EXUDING BAD GIRL ENERGY Natalia Cigliuti does her usual melodramatic good job playing Sidney, the bad girl, even if some of the things her character does don't make any sense.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *WHY DOES SIDNEY SHRED GWEN'S MORTGAGE CHECK, AND WHY DOES GWEN TAKE IT TO WORK TO MAIL IN THE FIRST PLACE? Why doesn't Gwen just mail her check from home? We see her filling it out, and putting it in an envelope at home, so why does she take it to work to mail? Also, it's not enough they're framing her for murder, Sidney has to cause her mortgage to go into foreclosure too? Why? It never really goes anywhere, and is another dead end plotline.

*THE PI IS PRETTY OBVIOUS David Wyatt (Bryan Mitchell), the private investigator Ed's wife hires is not very good at his job. He's running around on a well lit street, with a huge camera in his hands, basically screaming, look at me, I'm following you! He doesn't even try to hide, or be discreet. It was pretty silly.

*THE PACING IS SLOW At about thirty minutes in, it seems to start moving at a crawl.

*OH BROTHER... HERE COMES THE DEUS EX MACHINAS Gwen's married ex-boyfriend, and father of her son, attacked her when she was pregnant. He somehow "convinces" the police she attacked him, for no reason. In reality, she was defending herself from his drunken attack, after he learned of her pregnancy. NO COP WOULD BELIEVE MOUSY, PREGNANT GWEN ATTACKED ANYBODY! They wouldn't go on the word of a drunk, against a sane sober person, even if he was their friend. Here's a fun fact all cops know, if a pregnant woman dies (by foul play) 98% of the time, it's the baby's father who kills her. The stats are higher for babies conceived in infidelity (like Gwen). No cop would put his future livelihood on the line, for a friend, by believing a timid pregnant woman attacked her drunk baby's father. This is a deus ex machina, so Gwen can have some history of violence in her past. But it's NOT believable, not even a little bit. So, I'm thrown out of the story, by lazy writing from Kevin Dean & Michelle Mower. We're also supposed to believe this drunk guy was granted a restraining order...against this frightened pregnant girl... by a Texas judge? Who are you freaking kidding? IT'S SO STUPID! And what really bothers me, IT'S NOT NEEDED! This takes place in Houston, and Texans don't have the best record when it comes to not convicting innocent people (anyone remember Darlene Routier?) In other words, if Sidney framed Gwen, she'd probably be convicted, with or without a history of violence. This whole deus ex machina could have been left out, and the story would be much more believable (and enjoyable). A side note: because Gwen had had a negative interaction with the police previously, she would be far less likely to cooperate, or even answer questions (especially hostile questions) from the police this time around. This is another reason why this is a terrible plotline.

*IS IT ME, OR DOES DREW WATERS (ED) LOOK LIKE HE MIGHT TURN INTO A VAMPIRE? I've seen Drew Waters in other TV movies, and never thought he might sprout teeth before. Maybe it's the way he's lighted here.

GWEN'S MOTHER IS A MONSTER Instead of just telling Gwen, that Ed has been lying to her about his identity, she drags her to a public place to show her? What a b*tch! Also, NOT BELIEVABLE!

*I WATCH A LOT OF THE TV SHOW Cheaters (2000) and usually the first words asked by the person being cheated on, to the "other woman/man" is "Did you know he/she was married?" Kelly Baker (Julia Barnett), Ed's wife, knows Gwen was unaware he was married, but still comes to her place of business, to scream at her. If you were a preacher's wife, and wanted to keep your husband's affair on the down-low, wouldn't you be more discreet? It's so preposterous a scenario, that it moves into ridiculousness. It's completely unbelievable as a real world confrontation, for so many reasons. So again, I'm thrown out of the movie, and this is another epic fail from Kevin Dean & Michelle Mower (the writers).

*GWEN DOESN'T HAVE A BACKBONE WHEN ED'S WIFE SHOWS UP AT HER PLACE OF BUSINESS She literally doesn't say one word to Kelly, Ed's wife, even when Kelly calls her a wh*re in front of her boss. Instead, she marches over to Ed's Church to confront him?!?? It's totally out of character for Gwen, and for any sane woman. She'd have told Kelly where to go, and then she'd never see Ed again. This is so ridiculous, it's hard to watch, even for a melodrama.

*WHEN GWEN MARCHES OVER TO ED'S CHURCH TO CONFRONT HIM, he begins telling her he loves her, within earshot of his secretary. WHAT?!? This is the stupidest attempt at a melodrama I've seen. What's next, are the characters going to be abducted by aliens? Because that's just as unbelievable as the rest of this script.

*DETECTIVE ALVAREZ DELIVERS HER LINES LIKE SHE'S READING THEM OFF OF CUE CARDS Angela Rawna gives a wooden, awful performance as Detective Rita Alvarez, but a large part of it is the terrible lines she's being forced to deliver. Maybe if she had something better to work with...

*TOO MANY INGREDIENTS RUIN THE SOUP... And too many motives ruin the TV movie. There are two main motives here, which makes for a clunky, UNBELIEVABLE plot. Those aliens are gonna land, and abduct all the characters at any moment, I can just feel it...

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *I love melodramas. I love the good vs evil storylines, the silly, exaggerated scenarios and characters. But this is not a successful melodrama, because you still have to have believable plotlines. Instead of exaggerating believable behavior, they instead throw in plotlines THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE! It feels like it was written by someone who hates the melodramatic art form, or worse, by someone who doesn't understand it, and just did this project for money. It's an epic fail from writers, Kevin Dean & Michelle Mower, and I can't even recommend it to fans of made-for-tv movies. This movie is almost unwatchable, and I had to skim through parts, just so I could finish the review. I recommend this to film students as a reference for how NOT to make low budget melodramas.

CLOSING NOTES: *This is a made-for-tv movie, please keep that in mind before you watch/rate it. TV movies have a much lower budget, and so your expectations should be adjusted.

*I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. This review was NOT written in full, or in part, by a bot. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews (less trolls and fanboys), and better entertainment. Hope I helped you out.