Au-delà des apparences

The only redeeming thing in this movie is that it's based off a true story. Rob Lowe does his best, but the whole movie really is just moving from one scene to the next. The writing isn't awful, but most of the other actors are just ok at best. Really just a super boring movie with little to no reason to spend time watching it.

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.

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.

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.

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!