LMN
Lifetime Movie Network’s ‘Revenge is a Mother’ theme continues with a new thriller, The Baby My Husband Lied About, full of twists, turns, murder, and deception to keep you guessing whodunit.
The Baby My Husband Lied About focuses on married couple Jen and Spencer, who are about to attend Spencer’s parents’ 40th anniversary party. Jen is also seven weeks pregnant, but she’s not ready to announce, especially at a party for Spencer’s parents. To say these people are well off is an understatement. Parents Annabel and William live in a huge house right out of Architectural Digest, and the party is filled with family and more well-to-do friends. But Annabel has an obvious disdain for Jen, and the one person Jen can actually talk to is another ‘outsider’, Carrie, who is married to Spencer’s cousin Marcus. As they chit chat, both are puzzled by how the relationship between Spencer and Marcus, once as close as brothers, has grown distant. Even more puzzling, Marcus pulls Jen aside, gives her an envelope and asks her to meet him outside after it gets dark so they can talk privately. Then during toasts to the parents, Spencer decides to blurt out that the gift he and Jen are giving them is … a grandchild. Jen plays along but she ain’t happy. After the sun goes down, she ventures out to look for Marcus and she finds him — dead at the bottom of a staircase. Was it an accident or … murder?
As the family gathers themselves and Carrie and her mother Vanessa return home for the night, Spencer suggests to Jen that they stay with his parents for the rest of the week, which she agrees to but somewhat reluctantly. Jen goes to console Carrie and tells her about the envelope Marcus gave her, and the open it together discovering a fertility report that has determined Spencer is sterile. But Jen is pregnant, so whose baby is she carrying and how will Spencer react when she tells him? Jen becomes Nancy Drew and begins investigating the report herself, stealing documents from the fertility clinic, and discovering that the donor is anonymous. But the deeper she gets into the investigation, she begins to get threatening texts and people around her begin to get hurt … or dead. A childhood photograph finally reveals the donor’s identity, but can Jen expose the truth before anyone else, or she, gets hurt?
The Baby My Husband Lied About is actually a pretty gripping mystery, even if the title (which, for a chance is pretty accurate) gives a bit of the surprise away. But Lorraine Brown’s script does a great job of setting up the premise and filling it with characters you know you can’t trust, while others seem to be on Jen’s side but as the situation unfolds you begin to doubt them, like Carrie and Vanessa. There’s also a masked, hooded assailant who could be anyone, but even that reveal is handled well. There are also two big reveals regarding the baby’s parentage, not only who the father is but how he is related to the family (which goes a long way to explaining the tense relationships between some of the characters). There really is one wild plot device piled on top of another and it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. Helping this all play out is Aubrey Arnason’s skillful direction, that builds suspense and guides the actors to give natural performances so that none of them are doing the obvious ‘yeah, it’s me’ style of acting that leaves little to the imagination. Great work all around.
The cast is also surprisingly good. Yoshié Bancroft is perfect as Jen, building the character so that the audience can sympathize with her and putting them on the edge of their seats as her situation becomes more an more harrowing while trying to put all the pieces together. Clayton James is also very good as Spencer, giving a performance that always keeps us guessing. Does he know what’s going on or is he as in the dark as Jen? Lauren Jackson is also great as Carrie, always there to lend Jen the support she needs while still grieving the loss of her husband. And while she never does anything with her performance to suggest that she’s involved in the baby daddy deception, you still have to wonder if she’s being as genuine as she appears. The same goes for Shaye Quinn as her mother Vanessa. She seems to be on Jen’s side, and we know she and Annabel don’t get along, but is she a little too eager to offer her support to Jen? The writing and the performances really keep you guessing.
Karen Kruper plays the matriarch Annabel to perfection as well, clearly showing a polite dislike for Jen, being totally condescending about the crystal vase they brought her without being flagrantly condescending. She even seems to soften a bit after Marcus’ death, but she becomes totally ferocious when the truth is revealed. Matt Hamilton is also good in his short time as Marcus, Dave MacKinnon overacts a bit as the flustered fertility doctor, and Roark Critchlow puts in a small appearance as Spencer’s father, who seems to just be putting up with his wife’s self-serving party and who has some skeletons of his own that explains his attitude. Overall, everyone does a great job and makes this a really engaging watch.
The Baby My Husband Lied About is one of LMN’s better thrillers that really requires you to pay attention as Jen puts the pieces of the puzzle together. If there is one complaint — it’s the constant clomping of Jen’s shoes. Has no one heard of carpet? Every floor is wood or polished concrete, so even when she’s sneaking around offices and her in-laws’ house, anyone could hear her coming a mile away. Perhaps some different shoes were in order. They’re not called ‘sneakers’ for nothing! The noise aside, this is an enjoyable, taut mystery-thriller.
The Baby My Husband Lied About has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.