Lifetime
It’s been a while since Lifetime has rolled out a real ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ movie after several purportedly ‘based on actual events’ (the plural there has always been a bit curious), and while some of the previous films have been met with criticism for their inaccuracies, Lifetime made sure to load up the front end of the movie with disclaimers to make sure viewers are aware that this is a dramatization of a true story, not a documentary, and it appears that the subjects of the story had no involvement in the project (which will also lead to criticism, so don’t shoot the messenger — we’re just here to review the movie).
A Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story is centered around the relationship of Lisa and Darren, a young couple who get engaged, married and pregnant in short order. Darren is a golfer attempting to go pro, and Lisa has always felt that his parents have never regarded her as good enough for him, so it’s five months into the pregnancy before they even drop the news on them. Darren’s mom is thrilled though and wants to go through Darren’s old baby clothes with Lisa because she just knows it will be a boy. The parents are also happy that the couple has chosen Darren Jr. for the baby’s name when it is revealed it will indeed be a boy. Unbeknownst to Lisa, Darren is beginning to flirt with a new employee, Michelle, at the golf club where he works. Michelle tries to keep things friendly between them, and when Darren invites her back to his house while Lisa is away visiting her parents, Michelle politely turns him down, not ready to move into anything more serious (she is also totally unaware that he’s married).
Lisa returns and the plan is that her parents are arriving the next day and are going to help turn Darren’s ‘man cave’ into the baby’s room. He seems totally fine with that but the next day he spends a little too much time with Michelle and is late getting back home to help box his things up. Lisa later notices several phone calls to a town north of where they live, but assumes it has something to do with Darren’s upcoming tournament that could help him turn pro, and all the while he continues to play the doting husband. But eight-and-a-half months into the pregnancy, Lisa returns home from grocery shopping and is brutally attacked by a man in a dark hoodie and a gorilla mask, dark pants and gloves and a dark T-shirt with the Oakland A’s logo on it. The attacker had been previously revealed to be Darren, but Lisa cannot tell who it is. In one of the most horrific moments ever depicted in a Lifetime movie, Darren slashes Lisa’s throat multiple times, leaving her to bleed out on the floor (killing their baby in the process). But Lisa is not dead and she can see her attacker washing off the knife in the kitchen. When he appraoches her again to confirm she’s dead, Lisa keeps her eyes closed and holds her breath until he leaves. She miraculously manages to dial 911 — thank you push-button land-line phone (this takes place in the 1990s)! — and she and the baby survive.
Lifetime
Darren rushes to the hospital but when the police arrive to ask her some questions, they ask Darren to leave the room. Lisa is weak as it is and when the officer begins to suggest Darren is a suspect she refuses to believe him. Things get even worse when she witnesses Darren being arrested in the hallway outside her room. When her parents arrive, she calls Darren’s parents and vows to do whatever she can to help him, and she checks herself out of the hospital. Forcing herself to confront what happened by revisiting her apartment, the detective arrives to deliver some stunning news — Darren has confessed following questioning if his employer who could not match up their timeline with Darren’s as to where he was on the day of the attack, and there was a lot of blood on the clothes in his locker and in his car, which they believed was Lisa’s, though tests had not confirmed this yet, and a receipt for a mask from a party store. Lisa still refused to believe any of this until the officer presented her with a folder full of cards and love letters between Darren and Michelle, stunning her with the realization of his affair. Lisa gives birth and stays with her parents, but because of the trauma she can’t even hold her own baby which impacts her emotionally. At one point she does go to the prison to confront Darren and shows him a picture of their son (but she has not gone through with naming him Darren Jr. so as to give the boy a chance to grow up without that stigma attached to him). She asks Darren why he did it, and he claims he has no memory of the attack. Lisa files for divorce, and when Darren’s trial comes she testifies with great power, telling the court what Darren did to her, complete with photos of her injuries and the reveal of the scars on her neck, which she has kept covered with a scarf since the incident.
Before Darren’s side of the case can be presented, he pleads guilty, robbing Lisa of the chance to hear him speak and see him sentenced, to see how her words affected the judge and jury. Darren was given life with the possibility of parole … in three years! The whole ordeal takes a toll on Lisa, coupled with the death of her beloved grandmother and the inability to connect with her child, nearly driving her to an act of suicide. But she gathers herself and tries to become the mother her son needs, but she is presented with one obstacle three years later when Darren is up for parole. Her lawyer urges her to speak at the hearing to keep him in prison, but Lisa is still hurting from not being part of his original sentencing. Will she do what she can to keep him behind bars, or will she just try to move on, but always with the fear that she and her son will have to look over their shoulders every day wondering if he will find them to finish the job?
Lifetime
A Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story is a gripping story of a relationship gone terribly wrong, punctuated by the horrific depiction of the brutal attack sustained by Lisa that may be so traumatizing that some viewers will definitely want to avert their eyes. It truly could be triggering for many. We can’t vouch for the screenplay’s total authenticity when it comes to the facts of the relationships and the attack, but it seems to hit all the notes from public records. It’s never really clear as to why Darren resorts to such an act of violence as he’s never portrayed as anything but a loving husband — with a wandering eye — but wouldn’t a divorce have been easier if not as financially acceptable to him or his family? He threw away his whole life to get rid of someone when he could have simply walked away. But the story is still gripping, and the directors (Colleen Rush and David Weaver) keep things moving.
Also making the film memorable are the performances by Keana Lyn Bastidas as Lisa, and Jon McLaren as Darren. Bastidas portrays Lisa as a woman totally in love with her husband, completely devoted to him and so excited to be a mother. She gives a certain innocence to Lisa and remains steadfast in her defense of Darren until the truth comes tumbling down on her. Then her performance becomes detatched as Lisa almost becomes a zombie, unable to function in her daily life and certainly not mentally equipped to even care for her child, no matter how hard she tries. Her performance is just heart-wrenching after the attack (and she handles the attack scene with a terrifying sense of realness). McLaren, now apparently Lifetime’s go-to psycho, also projects total adoration for Lisa although when she reveals she’s pregnant, he makes it clear this is something Darren is not prepared for (when Michelle finds out about Lisa and the baby, Darren tries to tell her that Lisa basically engineered the entire thing — not that he wasn’t a participant). He also clearly has interest in Michelle, but as he is planning to attack Lisa, the look on his face is pure hatred and after that point there isn’t anything he can do to make us believe that he’s being authentic, from the time Lisa visits him in prison up to the trial and at his parole hearing. McLaren does a great job of making Darren emotionally ambiguous following the attack. Both of these performances are key in making the story so gripping.
Lifetime
The rest of the cast all do some great work including Cassandra Potenza as Michelle, Matthew McFadzean as Detective Goodwin, and Katie Griffin and Jorge Molina as Lisa’s parents. One little thing needs to be called out though, and that is how the network promoted the movie with Marilu Henner, who plays Lisa’s grandmother. Henner is wonderful and authentic, truly showing how much she cares for Lisa. But … she’s in three short scenes, hardly enough to warrant all the promotion and placement on the main artwork for the movie simply because she’s the ‘big name’ in the cast. It may have worked better had she been a surprise cameo rather than making the audience believe she is a major part of the film.
That being said, A Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story is one of the better TV movies Lifetime has cranked out in a while, and thanks to the lurid subject matter and the solid performances from Keana Lyn Bastidas and Jon McLaren, the film is intense but engaging, but do beware of the attack scene. It is violent and bloody and could be seriously triggering.
If you or someone you know has experienced domestic violence, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-88-799-SAFE (7233), or text ‘START’ to 88788, or visit the website TheHotline.org to chat online. Make your voices heard as the current president is attempting to designate domestic violence as not really a crime.
A Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story has a run time of 1 hour 28 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
A Husband to Die For: The Lisa Aguilar Story | Trailer
Lifetime