Movie Review :: Lifetime Movie Network’s Do You Fear What I Fear

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While Lifetime goes full in on the holiday fare, leaving the ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ stories in the rear view mirror for a while, sister network LMN also joins the holiday celebration but sticks close to its crime-thriller-mystery roots. There ain’t nothing joyful going on at this network as it rolls out its ‘Slay Bells’ film series again this year — although it seems there is only one actual holiday themed original, as the other movies advertised thus far are just re-airings of Lifetime movies that don’t really connect to Christmas.

But Do You Fear What I Fear definitely has a Christmas vibe, and even in the opening scenes — if you can overlook the title sequence of someone doing some questionable construction — it almost feels like a Hallmark Christmas movie with small town charm and folks getting the place decorated for the holidays. Claire even gets some great news from her bestie — a job offer … in New York City. Then we ditch the Hallmark vibe altogether when Claire dumps her boyfriend and heads to the Big Apple to make a name for herself in marketing. From here the story works overtime to make you think there is something sinister with the company. Claire finds she’s no better than an intern once she gets to the office and is shown her, gasp, cubicle with all the other worker drones (she thought her pal’s lavish office was hers), and then the company sets her up in a high-priced apartment (no word on if the company, SteadPointe, is footing the bill or if Claire is … and if she is how can she possibly afford the place?) with a sinister guy working the front desk, a sinister maintenance guy, suspect neighbors, and weird construction noises in the middle of the night in the vacant apartment next to hers … which no one believes is actually happening (girl, you have a phone, shoot some video). One night Claire even bangs on the wall and gets a bang back, yet everyone claims the apartment is vacant.

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Claire apparently continues to do her job, and she makes friends with her neighbor, but shortly after showing him her apartment, things begin to happen while she’s out — a snow globe from her hometown of Pine Hollow that she put away is suddenly back on display (she is desperately trying to forget her life there, and that includes her ex Jesse), and the next day her apartment is fully decorated for Christmas, which is something else she does not want to think about. She even gets an envelope under her door with a photo of her as a child with Santa, with ‘Do you see what I see’ written on the back. The Christmas decorations also include a ‘Do You See What I See’ banner across the window, and her Alexa … I mean ‘Elmer’ … keeps playing a song apparently of that title that sounds like a knock-off version of ‘Welcome Back, Kotter’. She first blames neighbor Miles, and even accuses him of stalking her, but, well, he’s gay so he has no interest in her in that way but he is a tech guru so he helps her set up cameras in her apartment to try to catch the intruder. Claire also meets another neighbor, Steve, and they actually have a bit of a spark but Claire doesn’t know if she can trust him fully … especially when the cameras do catch someone in the apartment and she finds an identical hat in Steve’s closet. Is he the guy, or is he being set up? The police are at least helpful and not condescending, but the building staff are less than interested. The glorified doorman, George, looks down on Claire and insinuates many times that perhaps she just doesn’t fit in with the building’s more well-to-do residents. Rude. The maintenance guy, Ray, is just surly, and the only one who is helpful, Larry, ‘falls’ down a flight of stairs and busts his head open. Ray has security video of the ‘accident’ but doesn’t seem the least bit interested in taking a closer look at it. (And Both George and Ray really get pissy when the police question them.) Claire does eventually find out who has been stalking her, and it comes completely out of left field because there was zero indication that this person was a suspect. Which is what makes this movie so frustrating.

Usually in a mystery-thriller like this, there are a list of suspects, all but one a red herring but at least the stories are constructed in such a way so that you, as the viewer, can play detective and try to hypothesize who the person of question will be before the main character figures it out. The story by Jeffrey Schenck and Peter Sullivan, written by Adam Rockoff, tries to build a rogues gallery of potential creepers — Steve, Miles, Ray, George, maybe even bestie Sloane, or boss Elizabeth if you want to really stretch things — but none of them except for Sloane had any connection to Claire, so none of them would have have known about Pine Hollow, had access to the photo, or realized she wanted nothing to do with Christmas. That leaves Jesse and her mother. And they’re both still in Pine Hollow as far as we know, so it’s nearly impossible to be invested in the story when you’re in the same spot as Claire, unable to put any of the puzzle pieces together. Audiences like to play along and try to guess who the culprit is, but this story does not really allow us the opportunity to properly determine who is trustworthy and who isn’t. The reveal of who has been stalking Claire is also a stretch because it makes little sense as to how they got the apartment next door, which everyone claims is empty. So how are they getting in and out of the building undetected. How did they get a key? How is no one else hearing the banging and drilling at all hours of the night? I mean, if you’re trying to be stealthy about things … do your construction during the day when everyone is awake or at work! How did the person get all of those Christmas decorations into the building and into Claire’s apartment unseen? None of this makes any sense.

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The only thing that helps to elevate this movie is the nice production value and the cast. Pine Hollow is lovely, right out of the Hallmark small town scrapbook. The office in New York looks like a high-power agency. Claire’s apartment is a cozy oasis in the big city with its exposed brick walls and warm colors (and it looks immaculate even though she keeps telling anyone who enters that it’s a mess). This movie really does have a surprisingly high quality look.

Ciara Hanna does a nice job as Claire. She is perfectly chipper and full of small town holiday spirit in the first scene, she’s excited about her new job, but Hanna makes it clear that her expectations were way too high as she becomes less enthused about her position. She also does a good job at trying to connect with Miles and Steve, while keeping them at arm’s length until she feels she can truly trust Miles. When things really go awry, she never allows Claire to become the victim, she never tries to run away, she’s always stalking the hallways, stairways and basement of the building trying to figure out what is going on. She does at times show how this is wearing on Claire, but she never completely falls to pieces, keeping Claire a pretty strong woman not about to let someone take this dream of a career in the big city away from her.

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Justin Cole turns in a nice performance as Miles, making him seem just suspicious enough at first but not holding a sign over his head that says ‘RED HERRING’. As the character is a tech nerd, he very easily could be the one stalking Claire though he has no reason to, so when she asks if he has been in her apartment, Cole’s reaction comes across as genuine and then he and Hanna do end up with some good friend chemistry. Cole shows that Miles genuinely does care about Claire’s safety, so he becomes a character that the audience can trust as well. I have to say I was pretty shocked to see Josh Henderson in an LMN movie after roles on Desperate Housewives, 90210, and the Dallas revival as the son of JR Ewing. His performance is fine as he has to balance the character as being a good guy truly interested in Claire while being just suspicious enough to make the viewer think there is something up with him. When he’s having drinks or dinner with Claire, is he making small talk, or his he gathering information? Henderson does manage to tread a fine line to keep us guessing as to his true intentions, but we also have to wonder how he would be connected to Claire in order to be doing what the perp is doing. Certainly either he or Miles could easily drag Christmas trees and lights and other decorations into the building without George batting an eye, but in the end we actually do hope that Claire and Steve will find some kind of romantic connection.

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Michael Silberblatt is really good as Jesse, giving off a real small town guy vibe, and totally showing his hurt when Claire just dumps him for the big city. There is a scene late in the movie when she actually talks to him on the phone, and Silberblatt — even with the much too bright lighting coming from his steering wheel to illuminate his face — conveys Jesse’s feelings through his facial expressions, totally making the viewer sympathize with him (almost making us think that Claire was kind of cold-hearted to say goodbye just like that). Fred Galyean does a great job of putting on a false face of pleasantness with Claire, at first, and then is never shy about showing his contempt with his expressions. Why he has such an attitude with her is never known, but of course that just moves him up on the list of potential suspects. Zane Haney is also surly for no reason as maintenance man Ray, but he does serve up enough attitude to also make us question his intentions. Marc Lucia’s Larry is the one person in the building who always has a smile for Claire, always goes out of his way to help, so it’s actually tragic when he meets his grim fate. If it hadn’t been for the Miles character, Larry could have been the one who actually helped Claire figure things out. It seems Larry was sacrificed by the writers for Miles. Nicole Stubbs doesn’t have a lot to do as friend Sloane, but when she is with Claire she makes their relationship feel grounded in reality. Elke Berry plays boss Elizabeth in such a way that she seems to like her employees while at the same time ready to toss them out the door if they so much as look sideways at her. It seems that she runs things based on fear, of her, keeping everyone on their toes and at the top of their game … or else.

Do You Fear What I Fear is an antidote to the traditional holiday movie with its darker subject matter, but it could have used a bit more excitement and coherence. Perhaps offing more than one character would have livened things up a bit, whittle down the suspects to really keep the audience engaged. As it stands, it offers a confounding mystery that is nearly impossible to figure out, but it looks expensive and has a cast that is game, invested enough in their character to keep the audience watching until the end.

Do You Fear What I Fear has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.