Plus jamais cela

Amelia Davis (Mena Suvari) writes a newspaper column called Ask Amelia advising her female readers to stand up against their abusers. She starts a blog and is befriended by Jenny Reardon who wrote to her and escaped from an abusive relationship. A year later, she gains some success and is being courted to sell. She is approached by the dashing Carlo Rossi. Detective Hank Wilson tells her that her abusive ex-husband Darryl Devine just got paroled. She is attacked by a mystery masked man.

This is a TV movie that runs like a Lifetime movie. The flow is a little clunky but the story is generally fine although not that original. There is a good mystery with good twists. The production is straight forward TV. Suvari is the only truly compelling actor in the cast. It's a middling affair that I can't quite recommend.

Though this is a TV movie, so no big budget to play with, the writers Michael Ades and Scott Abramovitch along with the Director Tristan Dubois give the audience a multi-layered tale of stalking and twisted vengeance.

The premise of the story is pretty basic; Amelia Davis (Mena Suvari) starts a blog after being the victim of spousal abuse and builds a fanbase and following of other similar sufferers of abuse, and tries to help them find a way to leave their violent relationships. However, she is attacked one night and the possible perpetrators are numerous. Could it be her ex, who she helped imprison, though is now out on parole; could it be her new boyfriend who may not be as clean cut as he makes out; or could it be a stalker fan. Once the story gets going the twists start coming thick and fast and each is as believable as the other. It had me guessing right up to the end when it suddenly became painfully obvious who it was... and that the ending even has a twist in its tale.

Dubois does an exceptional job with the pace of the movie, slowing it down for the more dramatic scenes and screeching it up to maximum to build excitement. This is a well-crafted piece.

The acting is above average, though the best character is Carlo Rossi who is brilliantly portrayed by Joseph Mesiano. He gets the gets the swarthy, suave, sexy, smooth, smug, and smarmy personality just right as you are never too sure about him and his motives.

It's all of this which kept me entertained and away from the stop and delete buttons when it came on the telly. To be truthful, I really enjoyed this film and couldn't find much wrong with it at all. So if you like mystery movies this is one to watch. Though, it's not one you would watch over and over again because once it's been solved there's not much else to bring you back to the film. I would watch it again, should I ever forget the outcome...

The actors are nice to look at, Mena played the titular American Beauty in American Beauty. But there's a lot in the film that makes little to no sense. Plays at cultural misogyny, not for thinkers but if you like watching pretty people get it on, you'll love it.

I have watched my fair share of made-for-tv movies, so I generally know what to expect. I usually don't think they're terrible, but also not great. This movie was more believable and was paced better than many of the made-for-tv mystery/thriller type movies I have seen. The storyline was a bit predictable and the movie left me wanting a little more, but it did keep my interest all the way until the end. There was a twist I thought might happen, but I only had it partially right. Overall a decent movie for a one-time watch if you set your expectations appropriately. 6/10.

I can always tell when a movie is made by lifetime. Simply by their consistency with story plots (not necessarily a good thing), actors, twists, and ratings.

Rating for Lifetime movies are very frequently rated between 4 and 6, which is actually decent if you are a true movie fan, but with the consistency comes alot of repetition, and common foreshadowing thaat makes the movies just plain predictable but watchable.