Au-delà des apparences

This is an engaging movie... not the best, but certainly watchable. What makes this movie remarkable, however, is Rob Lowe's stellar performance. I mean, this guy is on fire! I've seen him in a few things and have never given him much that much thought, but that he could turn in such a world class performance in what is essentially a throw-away (although certainly decent) movie is a testament to what an incredible talent he must be. I am not joking. He is really good in this... he had me laughing out loud several times, not because he was funny but simply because I was in awe of how well he delivered this or that line. Just as "Batman: The Dark Knight" wasn't that good a movie but was elevated by Heath Ledger's performance, so is this TV movie elevated into true art by the solid acting performances, especially Lowe's. Recommended!

I was caught up watching this right away, reading on the screen this was a true story, which immediately takes off with a neighbor opening th front door after a knock one late night, finding the neighboring kid with bare feet covered in blood. The blood is from the mother, which seems to have shot herself. Then the film tells both the continuation of the effect this has on the relatives and friends, as we also neatly are told in retrospect what happened up to the tragic event of finding her shot on the bed.

The film is very good hand work, and the acting is excellent, especially from Rob Lowe, playing the dentist husband Bart Corbin is excellent. No wonder his career is back on track. This shows his acting skills. Stephanie von Pfetten, which plays the dead woman which we also get to know retrospectively does great. Her sister is played by Lauren Holley, also doing that role great. We're neatly introduced to the fact of a family not functioning, with the parents blaming each other.

The good hand work is showed in the film's pace, the storytelling and even in the narration and music. We also find the story building up suspension about what happened up to her death, where several is involved. The sister believes Bart killed her. And a female detective, played by Michele Hurd, is doing a great investigative job. We follow the investigation in an interesting way, unveiling the story.

When I went to rate this on IMDb I was really baffled by the low score. I expected this to have a rating of 6 or 7, but 4,8??? I really think the ratings here tend to be very right, but this is an exception of the rule. I think this might be due to no dramatic ending. Well, this is a drama, not a fictional crime story. Well, it's far better than this rating in all aspects, and is well worth a watch. A good TV- movie about a true story.

An unhappily married woman, Jean Corbin, commits suicide. The beginning of this film is very good - a little boy crosses the street and a neighbor sees his toes are bloody. That's the end of the artistic touch.

Jean is married to a dentist, played by Rob Lowe. You can see that if she had a jealous bone in her body, her marriage would be difficult. She's convinced he's having an affair with his assistant.

Distressed, she does what any married woman does to find comfort. She goes on an Internet chat room and meets a guy named Chris. Love blossoms. She wants out of her marriage.

It takes awhile, but Chris finally confesses he's a woman named Marion. Jean agrees to meet her for some reason, but Marion feels they can overlook the fact that Jean is straight and move in together.

So you can see Jean has a couple of reasons why her life might be better if she left it.

Her sister (Lauren Holly) believes her husband Barry (that would be Rob) killed Jean and wants a police detective (Michelle Hurd) to help her prove it.

We see flashbacks of Barry before Jean. It's the '80s. We know because the woman in the flashback has huge hair, and Rick Astley is playing in the background. And Rob looks the way he does in the present. Really they needed a younger actor. The man was 45 when this film was made.

We don't see a real embellishment of his character- he's crying, he's concerned about his children, and the next minute he's an obvious, threatening control freak.

Rob Lowe does a great job - but really he's the only good thing in it.

Agree that Rob Lowe shows his talent in this and it was for this that the movie was watchable. And Jenn his wife-unlike the balance of the cast whose over-acting made a cliché of a script that much harder to stand, her underplay was refreshing and a respectful reminder that this happened. The lack of skill in a dialogue that balanced boredom with cringe-worthy nonsense and lack of skill in acting it out would have been unwatchable without the two leads- a disservice to the real people who survived the loss and so senseless and selfish.

On the author I see most readers rave about (Ann Rule) I've never understood why. Nonfiction isn't easy nor a gift like Truman Capote's expected again but Jack Olsen, Tom Henderson, Kevin Sullivan-my opinion only-I wish there were more true crime writers like them.

Really good story with good acting, but the photography of the movie is so bad that it killed my concentration. Angles are so wrong, and imbalanced, shifted point of perspective, most of the time when characters are talking you can see only half of their faces with the rest of the screen completely empty and blurred. Lightning is also very bad under the direct sunlight with harsh shadows. I mean the noon sun is either behind their faces or from the side and you only see half of the face. Very distracting, and also, in almost every scene there must be something blurry in foreground that takes over half of the screen! So annoying! Who ever was behind the camera was either amateur or experimenting. This killed the movie for me, which sadly has such a great story.