LMN
While the Lifetime channel has turned over its weekends to the ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime’ holiday movies, sister channel LMN (an initialism for the Lifetime Movie Network, also known as Lifetime Movies) is doing its own thing for the holidays which they are calling ‘Slay Bells’, running movies that would probably be right at home on Lifetime’s rest of the year schedule, and have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. We were (un)fortunate enough to tune in for the new thriller Be Careful What You Say, which was apparently produced under the title Deadly Advice.
Be Careful What You Say starts right off with single mom Vanessa being abused by her belligerent 15-year-old son Dylan, to the point that she reaches out to her favorite podcast, ‘Dear Iris’, where host Iris and co-host Zach read emails from listeners looking for advice (when they should really be seeking professional help). Basically the modern Dear Abby. Vanessa messages the live broadcast and Zach reads it to Iris, who basically tells the anonymous listener to go the tough love route because she sets the rules, not her son. Vanessa tries to do just that, and by putting her foot down, she and Dylan get into a physical fight over a backpack as he tries to leave the house, and leave he does … in a body bag after he tumbled down a wooden staircase and cracked his noggin.
The tragedy kicks Vanessa into gear to improve herself, get into fitness and start her own exercise and self-help podcast. Oh, and it also sets her on a path for revenge and murder, placing the blame for her son’s death on the advice she solicited from an unlicensed podcast host. First she stalks Zach, flattens the tires on his truck, just happens to pass by so she can give him a ride to Iris’ house, meets Iris and the podcast producer Henry — who has just proposed to Iris — then returns to Zach’s house to stage a break-in that ends with a knife in Zach’s abdomen. Vanessa returns to Iris’ house to drop off a notebook that must have fallen out of Zach’s bag when she gave him a ride and ‘learns’ the terrible news of Zach’s death. But the podcast must go on, at least that’s what Henry says since a major podcast distributor is on the verge of picking up the show, and Vanessa is there, she has a podcast (which, apparently, no one has bothered to listen to), so why not let her take Zach’s seat for the day. Iris does not want the show to go on, but she needs the cash to fund her sister’s college education and keep her house from being foreclosed on, so she agrees and … Vanessa is a hit! The offer her a permanent job, but she almost immediately becomes adversarial with Iris on the air, especially when a letter comes in from someone named Zoey who claims to be having an affair with Henry (that Vanessa sent from her own phone). Iris is upset that Vanessa pushed her on that but the execs loved the friction and so did the listeners, but when a photo of Henry and Zoey is texted to Iris, she immediately believes it is real and has second thoughts about the engagement (because Henry has a past). Vanessa takes things further by staging a sexual assault with Henry, and Iris dumps his ass as does the company buying her show, while Vanessa worms her way further into Iris’ life and career. But will Iris catch on that everything that’s happening only started when Vanessa showed up?
LMN
Be Careful What You Say is one of those infuriating thrillers because the storyline hinges on a main character never stopping to think about things rationally. For instance, Vanessa uses a photo of Henry with a client that would be easily recognizable since it came from a website, but Iris simply says it’s real and dumps Henry, despite his pleas that the image is Photoshopped. And let me tell you, Vanessa is a whiz at Photoshop. Later she patches together snippets of sentences that Iris said on the show and sends them to her sister in a voicemail which basically tells her ‘Happy birthday, I’m not paying for your college anymore, you’re on your own.’ And she even believes it because it came from Iris’ number (Vanessa also got some YouTube tutoring on how to spoof a phone number). It’s just maddening that even when the podcast company dumps Iris in favor of Vanessa, she still thinks everything that’s happened is real. She finally takes it upon herself to break into Vanessa’s house and gets some sense knocked into her (with a baseball bat) to understand what’s been happening. Of course, if Iris wan’t written to be so dumb, we wouldn’t have a movie … and that would have been a good thing.
Skye Coyne is fine as Iris, making her vulnerable enough to be sympathetic, but still saddled with the terrible writing that makes the viewer want to shake her until she comes to her sense. Nicole Dionne plays the harried mother very well, but then goes into complete scenery chewing mode as Vanessa puts her plan into action. The fact that no one questions her behavior is just ridiculous — well, at one point Iris’s sister heard me yelling at the TV ‘how do you know the picture is real’ — and insulting to the viewing. Jason Tobias’ Henry is a thankless role because he’s shamed for having a sexual past and then no one believes him when he pleads his innocence. Tobias makes Henry the one we really sympathize with. Morris Jude unfortunately doesn’t get enough screen time as Zach, Tanner Hagen plays the disgruntled teen to perfection, and Taylor Castro as Iris’ sister Kylie acts like she’d rather be anywhere but in this movie.
Director Doug Campbell has a long resume of these ‘trash TV’ movies but someone needs to rein him in a bit, or at least show him how podcasts and social media videos are made. For instance, Vanessa’s podcast is … bizarre. We never really know if she’s actually publishing a podcast because all she does is either turn on her iPad to shoot videos of herself working out or putting on makeup and talking to her listeners/viewers … without a ring light! No one is going to watch her film noir workout videos. And her podcast just seems to be her having a random thought that she then relays to her listeners. Maybe. Is her podcast a video podcast or an audio podcast, or both? There is no consistency and each recording lasts from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. It’s more like she’s doing ‘Reels’ for social media (which could explain why no one bothers to check her podcast before giving her a job). But the most egregious bit of direction comes during the ‘Dear Iris’ podcasts as Campbell places his camera on a circular track around the podcast table and actors and just rolls it around them during the entire scene, inducing vertigo and nausea in the viewers. And this isn’t just a one-time scene. I literally had to avert my eyes every time there was a podcast scene or I would have gotten dizzy and sick to my stomach. Whoever thought that was okay should be fired.
Be Careful What You Say or Deadly Advice or whatever it’s called is not worth your time unless you’re into self-torture. If that’s the case, please seek professional help and not the advice of a podcaster.
Be Careful What You Say has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
Deadly Advice (aka Be Careful What You Say) Official Trailer
Concord Films
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