Lifetime
Lifetime is back to its ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ themed movies, but while Killing the Competition is based on a true story, the disclaimer at the top of the film makes it clear that most of what we’re about to see is purely fictional … which makes sense since none of this is believable.
So what’s it about?
Killing the Competition stars Melissa Joan Hart as Elizabeth Fenwick, a mom who is determined to get her daughter on the high school cheer squad. Elizabeth is unusually driven, and we learn that her family has recently moved back to this town where she was the ‘head cheerleader’ during her time in school, but she was reluctant to make the move for reasons that are never really made clear. Even when her husband tries to explain it to his kids, he remains frustratingly vague (perhaps even he doesn’t know the full story). When Grace does not make the squad, Elizabeth goes into ‘tiger mom’ mode and appears before a committee to suggest the merits one receives by being on the squad, and how the current number of members seems arbitrary as there have been more members in past years. The committee agrees and allows Grace to be on the squad … along with everyone else who was rejected. Not quite what Elizabeth had planned, which causes her to descend further into madness, ‘sneaking’ in to rehearsals (wearing a different wig each time but the SAME BLUE JACKET), insisting Grace quit the team, trying to sabotage her daughter’s relationship with boyfriend Tyler, and kidnapping the new coach’s daughter Nicole to ‘prove’ to Grace that she’s cheating with Tyler, nearly killing her in the process (and with no actual deaths, the movie’s title is a bit misleading). Yet husband Steve just brushes off the erratic behavior as having something to do with the move back to town. As the movie begins with Elizabeth being carted off by the police, we know how this is going to end, but we’re left with the nagging questions does her family think what she did was off the rails (even Grace seems okay with it in court and while visiting mom in prison), and did Elizabeth learn anything as she’s seen going into ‘grooming’ mode with a new inmate?
Lifetime
Killing the Competition has got to be one of the dumbest movies Lifetime has produced, and that’s saying a lot. It’s so dumb it might make you angry for wasting your time watching it, especially in those scenes with Elizabeth hiding behind a rack of balls in the gym, sporting a new wig but the same outfit and no one, not even her daughter, noticing her sitting on the bleachers right out in the open! This movie takes the notion of suspension of disbelief to whole new levels. The script is terrible, which is even more shocking as it comes from Jane Espenson, someone with a pretty high pedigree considering her career on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica. TO be fair, she is a co-writer with Christina Welsh, but how bad are things for Espenson that she has to stoop to writing on bad Lifetime movies (lest we forget, she also had a hand in the aggravating I Will Survive: The Gloria Gaynor Story). Does someone at Lifetime have dirt on Espenson? Blink twice if you need help, girl. Said script puts Hart in one ridiculous situation after another, often raging nonsensically, often sounding like she’s just ad-libbing on the spot. On the other hand, it just paints Steve as completely oblivious, and poor Grace as too unforgiving, particularly after mom tried to sabotage her relationship (not to mention the time she almost ran Tyler over — on purpose — and brushed it off with ‘I just ran him off the road’, like that’s okay ,,, and no one presses charges!). And whoever was in charge of the wardrobe did Hart no favors, especially that blue jacket which is at least one size too small, and the wigs look like they came from the Party City going out of business sale.
Lifetime
It’s hard to judge Hart’s performance because she’s all over the place. As a producer did she know the script was crap and just went off on her own to try to make it somewhat watchable? Did she not think the scenes in the gym with her in ‘disguise’ were utterly ridiculous? The one interesting thing here is that Hart, or someone, decided to cast Eddie Mills as her husband and any Sabrina, the Teenage Witch fan will know that Mills also starred with Hart in the TV movie Sabrina Goes to Rome. Her best moment in the movie is probably as she is passionately addressing the committee on behalf of her daughter. You really believe her in this moment, but then it all goes off the rails as Elizabeth becomes more and more unhinged. This is not Hart’s best work.
Faring much better, but still forced to deal with a badly written character, is Lily Brooks O’Briant as Grace. Everything she does feels authentic — her interactions with her friends, her relationship with Tyler, her growing frustration with her mother — she just needed some better character development, she needed to confront her mother or at least tell her father what was happening, or the coach. Anyone! The script just leaves her floundering, which is frustrating for the viewing who is left to scream at the TV to tell someone, but that is not O’Briant’s fault. She does the best job with what she’s been given and she makes the movie tolerable.
Lucas Randazzo is also very good as Tyler, a character who even when he’s attacked by Elizabeth still stands by his girlfriend. He could have been written to have had enough and dump Grace, but this is the one good piece of writing in the movie. Valerie Loo and Anmalya Delva are also good as Grace’s friends, giving totally believable performances, making it feel like they have known each other for years. Unfortunately, Anzu Lawson starts out strong as she becomes the new cheer coach, but devolves into over-the-top histrionics after Elizabeth shows up at her house. In this case, all of the younger actors fare much better than the adults.
The film is directed by Lee Gabiana, setting up shots and scenes with skill, but apparently letting the actors just do whatever they want. Reining in Hart, in particular, making her lunacy more subtle and threatening and ditching some of the silliness of those gynmasium scenes, would have made for a better story and a more menacing character (but with Hart producing, it’s hard to know if she just made the decision on how she was going to play the character, director’s notes be damned). As it stands, Killing the Competition is a complete waste of time and talent … but it is ripe for group viewings for those who love to comment on and laugh at bad movies.
Killing the Competition has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
Killing the Competition Sneak Peek
Lifetime