Betrayal

Betrayal: The Perfect Husband (2023) left me feeling like I'd been betrayed by the movie itself! This cinematic trainwreck attempts to depict a love story gone sour, but ends up souring the entire viewing experience. First off, it's a betrayal in itself that the film centers more on the wife of the perpetrator, Jen Faison, rather than on the actual victims of Spencer Herron's despicable actions. It's like having a crime movie and focusing on the criminal's favorite sandwich instead of the investigation.

To make matters worse, the movie takes cringe to a new level with its awkward commercial segments shamelessly plugging the "Betrayal" podcast. I mean, come on, I didn't sign up for an infomercial! And don't get me started on the absurd pop music choices that felt like they were randomly thrown in, making me question if this film knew what it was trying to be. Betrayal: The Perfect Husband is a perfect example of how not to handle such a sensitive subject matter in a movie. It's a cinematic betrayal of our time and sanity. A Perfectly Awful Mess.

First off just watch the third episode don't waste your time watching all 3 episodes.

Episode 1 is the wife talking about how amazing he was when they dated. I think she described as perfect like 50 times.

Episode 2 is her talking about him cheating with adult women and normalizing her obsessiveness over every detail about him cheating. She was reading his sexts out loud to her podcast producer. It was very strange to watch. Speaking of the podcast producer she just really pushes the wife to continue this obsessiveness and really overdramatizes every little thing. This episode was just soooo long. Cheating is terrible and devastating to the spouse how gets cheated on but they made it like they were talking about he murdered someone. I found myself just not caring.

Episode 3 is finally about the sexual assault that lands him in jail. This was finally interesting because the dramatic nature finally matched what they were talking about. The student that comes forward and tells her story was great to listen to. Very brave and very proud of her.

Yes, the story is a bit dragged out; however, I was encouraged to finish it. By the end, Spence makes it clear that he is incapable of understanding why his behavior is bad. Conversely, Jenifer is the embodiment of goodness. Not only betrayed by her husband, but multiple friends and acquaintances, all of whom demonstrate a lack of morality. Our society is filled with those who can't be trusted. Naive, good people are easy prey. Sadly, children must be taught they cannot trust anyone

Humans are animals and few rise above it. The reviewers giving one-star ratings obviously resonate with beasts.

...and my daughter knew this teacher. That made it much more personal for me. I thought the documentary was well done and interesting. This story demonstrates why you really never know anyone. People should not be so arrogant to think that they do. It is unbelievable what he was able to get away with. I feel really sad for all the victims, and surely there are many more students that we don't know about, but also particularly sad for his wife who loved him so much only to be met with such great heartbreak.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

This isn't necessarily a unique story because unfortunately it happens more often than actually reported in the media. The show and it's story presentation just dragged. So much was repeated it seriously could have just been a 60 to 90 minute single episode rather than a series.

It stayed dedicated to those particular victims but for a series it should have went bigger. Include more stories of how these schools and admin protect the teachers rather than believe the students who have been victimized. How these schools wait and wait before involving the police. Schools need to monitor and insist on boundaries. Stop with the emails, texting and unsupervised social interaction off campus and after school hours.