Lifetime
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Lifetime’s latest ‘Sunday Night Thrills’ movie was going to be a Hallmark rom-com set in Greece. It really has that feel … until things take a decidedly non-Hallmark turn.
A Home to Die For stars Brianna Cohen as Anna, an author and soon-to-be divorced woman whose life is in turmoil as she is putting her house on the market and deciding whether to stay in Los Angeles or head back to Boston. Her bestie Crystal suggests she just take a little time away to gather her thoughts. Anna’s most recent book is not selling well, so she needs to cook up something quickly to save her contract with the publisher (here’s where there could have been an interesting crossover with Hallmark by having Alison Sweeney’s ‘To Barcelona’ character translate the failing novel into Greek and make it a success), but on top of everything else she’s got a case of writer’s block. Crystal tells Anna about a website called WanderNest that gives homeowners a chance to swap houses with someone. They stay at your house on vacation and you stay at theirs. It’s free Airbnbs, basically. Anna thinks it’s a little sketchy but she is assured there are background checks done so you don’t come home to an empty house. She applies and almost immediately she gets a hit from a woman in Greece named Aurora, who is coming to Los Angeles the next day and wants to swap with Anna. Anna’s realtor has scheduled an open house for the next day and Anna’s estranged husband is also planning to drop by the next day, but Anna manages to book a flight to Athens the next day, and runs out past the realtor, telling her she forgot about the open house but some strange woman will be staying there for two weeks so they’ll do it when she gets back. Anna’s almost-ex also isn’t thrilled when he arrives to find Crystal there attending to the unexpected house guest as he also expected the house to be open that day.
Meanwhile, Anna arrives in Greece and while soaking her cares away in the tub, she hears a noise in the house. Someone else is there! Turns out it’s just the groundskeeper Niko, who was running late and was just getting Anna’s welcome basket delivered. Seeming to be non-threatening, Anna asks Niko to suggest a cafe where she can while away the day trying to write. He does, she goes, and is confronted by a young woman named Lena, another American spending the Summer in Athens with her grandparents, something she’s done since she was four. She is also an aspiring writer and forges a quick friendship with Anna, hoping that she will give her some writing tips. She also tells Anna to stop by the restaurant where she works sometime. As Anna gets to know both Niko, who becomes her ‘date’ during her stay, and Lena, strange things begin to happen. A mysterious man begins following Anna, and a figure clad in black — pants, hoodie, gloves, shoes — keeps popping up and doing terrible things like sneaking into the house and deleting the files of Anna’s latest novel (she’s been inspired by Greece and her new friends) … and murder. Anna starts to believe Lena was responsible for deleting her files after finding a shrine to Anna in Lena’s bedroom while enjoying dinner at the grandparents’ house. But could it be Niko, who Lena’s grandparents warned Anna was no good? Back in the States, future-ex David does his own digging and finds Niko’s criminal record, and when Anna doesn’t answer her phone or return his calls he panics and takes off for Athens, apparently traveling through a wormhole and arriving just a few hours later. But is he too late? Are Niko and Lena the people Anna should be worried about? Is Aurora a scam artist, or is there someone else trying to destroy Anna’s life?
A Home to Die For is a convoluted thriller with many head-scratching questions, the first of which is why did Anna just jump at this offer to swap houses a minute after signing up with WanderNest, and how did she get everything in order including buying a last minute plane ticket? Another burning question is why does everyone think Niko is the hottest Greek man on the island? Nothing against Vaggelis Papadakis, but I don’t see women throwing themselves at him. He has a pleasant demeanor — and a very quick temper as Anna discovers — but Greek hunk does not come to mind. Also, how in the world is David able to book a flight to Athens on the spot and make the nearly thirteen hour flight within just a few hours? There is also the question of the person trying to destroy Anna.
Lifetime
Apologies, but spoilers from this point forward are unavoidable, so proceed at your own discretion.
The person stalking Anna is her bestie Crystal … who is the real owner of the house in Greece. But she lives in Los Angeles and has a workout studio of some sort which keeps her busy. So when does she go to Greece? You’d think Anna would be aware of any vacations her bestie has taken but it seems Crystal is firmly based in L.A. (And it is revealed later that Niko does know her and he really is just the groundskeeper … with a criminal record in the past, but he is reformed.) Aurora is just an actress Crystal hired (and if Anna had any sense she would have noticed the room from which Aurora spoke to her during their video chat is nowhere in the house she’s staying in), but somehow Crystal is both talking to Anna in Greece from Los Angeles, and is in Greece at the same time. The movie basically becomes a science fiction flick with all of this traveling going on. Are there portals everyone is moving through? Did the Concorde make a return? You really have to suspend disbelief to get through this movie. And the reveal of Crystal as the stalker/killer (through a series of vignettes like an episode of Columbo or
The cast makes the best of it though. Brianna Cohen, who also starred in LMN’s Dressed to Kill, is better than the material she’s given. She does come off as a very personable woman, very much not the impulsive type, living way out of her comfort zone, but it’s what Anna deserves. Cohen makes you feel like Anna is a rel down-to-earth person who you could easily strike up a conversation with in a coffee shop, and you do root for her to survive this ordeal and get her life together (perhaps falling back into David’s arms because he’s familiar and makes her feel safe isn’t the best idea though). Julia Terranova, who also co-wrote the screenplay, plays Lena as a little too fangirly, a little too eager to get close to Anna, a little too obvious as a suspect. It’s also a little too convenient that she left her bedroom door open so Anna would ‘inadvertently’ see the shrine, but once Anna turns on her Terranova’s performance actually manages to elicit sympathy from the audience because she really isn’t a bad person. She just lucked into bumping into her idol and tried to make the best of it. Terranova may be a little over-eager at the start but she ends up becoming endearing.
Lifetime
Vaggelis Papadakis is also fine as Niko. He seems to be an upstanding guy, although there are times when he is directed to play the character as a bit too suspicious to make him seem as shady as Anna is warned. But he obviously carries the weight of the world on his shoulders that is lightened by his developing relationship with Anna, but they both know it will have to end once she returns to Los Angeles. At least in that aspect, Anna never leads Niko on about the reality of the situation even though Niko is clearly wearing his heart on his sleeve. It is a fine performance that did not need all of the ‘he’s so hot’ nonsense because it just becomes distracting from Papadakis’ performance. Johnny Ramey is a bit all over the place as David, and the way he’s written just makes us wonder why he’s so overly controlling of Anna. They are divorcing, but does he want the divorce? One moment he’s angry at Anna for jetting off without warning, and the next he’s telling her she deserves some time away … even though it’s screwing up the sale of their soon-to-be former home. Ramey makes the best of it, but David is not the best written character. Peru Kavalieri really has to play Crystal with two different faces. She’s always the cheerful, supporting best friend to Anna but then she has to be a cold, hard murderess — with apparent super-strength, able to strangle a large man from the back seat of his car with a tiny piece of rope — delivering some ridiculous dialog about why she has secretly hated Anna for all those years. It’s not that she’s bad at either of Crystal’s personalities, it’s just a crazy plot twist that comes out of nowhere (except for one brief mention of the accident by Anna, and a quick dream that was triggered by that mention).
Besides the wacky plot twist of Crystal having planned all of this revenge stuff and the many questions that come with it, there’s never any mention or reaction to the news of the death of the man Crystal strangled, and only a brief acknowledgement of Lena’s fate … and the same way Crystal blamed Anna for her parents’ deaths, Lena’s grandparents have every reason to be forming a grudge against Anna for Lena’s death. Perhaps that is yet to come because the ending of the film strongly suggests there could be a sequel. While A Home to Die For ends up making little sense — and can someone please explain the title, because no one was dying for a home — it does have some decent performances and lovely location scenery in Athens. But that’s not really enough to recommend the time it would take to sit down and watch the movie.
A Home to Die For has a run time of 1 hour 28 minutes, and is rated TV-14.