This is not Citizen Kane. This is a Lifetime Movie. The writing is geared toward the sensibilities of women of a certain age and station in life. If you can't accept the paradigm for what it is, you won't get far with this one.
That being said, this movie entertained the hell out of me.
Brent, played with brilliant, unselfconscious sociopathy by Nicholas Brendon, is both charming and menacing by turns as the the man obsessed. In a perfect marriage of script and actor, there are moments of both almost comical self-awareness as he narrates his intrusion into his neighbor's lives via spy cams.
Chandra West, as Casey, is extremely engaging and sympathetic and has a natural chemistry with Nicholas Brendon that added terrifically to both his character's fantasy sequences and their more subtle interactions as well.
Vincent Ventresca as the husband, Jason, did a remarkable job balancing the colder aspects of his character with understated, but obvious love for his family, as well as a certain amount of personal charm which justified and bolstered his place in the film's quasi-romantic triangle.
The supporting cast was delightfully earnest in their delivery, which is nothing especially new for the Lifetime network, but a wonderfully familiar convention all the same.
Without giving too much away, it is worth noting that there were several well placed and surprising twists in the story which took it one step beyond the conventional movie-of-the- week storytelling.
In short, this was a great film, and well deserving of an evening in with an afghan and a box of girl scout cookies.
