Movie Review :: Lifetime Network’s The Couple Across the Street

Lifetime

Lifetime’s newest Sunday Night Thrills presentation is a very slow burn thriller that takes its good sweet time to build tension until the shocking climax, and the cast never gives anything away.

The Couple Across the Street (which honestly should have been ‘The Couple on the Next Property Over’ because there does not appear to be a house across the street a helf mile down the driveway) centers on the Lawson family, husband Nate, wife Amy and daughter Lily, who are moving from the big city to a home tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Amy apparently needed the break from her big city law career, so they’ve moved to the quiet greenery of a hilly, wooded area and she can still do some part-time work remotely. Nate seems thrilled with the move, Lily not so much … especially after they nearly hit a dying deer in the middle of the road on the way to their new house and Nate has to help put the animal out of its misery. The family moves on to their home and quickly settles in, and while Amy is doing some gardening one day she hears a banging on the door. She sees an older gentleman on the porch, who appears flustered when she angrily yells at him for pounding on the door like a maniac, but he just wanted to let them know his wife is at the front door with a welcome to the neighborhood casserole. Amy is still a little pissed by the intrusion — and how neither Nate or Lily heard the banging is never explained — but they make small talk with the new neighbors who seem to know quite a lot about them having just met them, like Nate is from Brooklyn, and they already know Amy’s name. The woman, Rachel, assures them that her husband, Tom, just likes to do research on any newcomers to the area, dropping the suggestion that the last owners of the home weren’t the best neighbors. Then Nate invites the Sullivans to their neighborhood cookout, much to Amy’s chagrin.

Meet the neighbors they do — there are a lot of people at this shindig considering the Lawsons just moved in and don’t know anyone — and when the Sullivans arrive, neighbors Dylan and Tiana reveal to Amy that the couple are ‘Doomsday Preppers’ and a little odd. That only makes Amy more suspicious of them, and when she catches Rachel chatting with Lily she steps in with a whole lot of attitude, and then Nate joins to cool things down. He invites them to have some food but they make an excuse to head back to their house (which is not across the street), probably because of the way Amy is glaring at them. Later, Amy and Lily go for a walk in the woods and Amy finds herself about to lose a limb when she steps into a bear trap. Luckily Tom and Rachel are nearby and save her before things take a turn for the worse, but they are upset that she trespassed on their property. Since police are so far away, they have the property booby-trapped to keep intruders out. At this point, Amy wants nothing to do with the Sullivans, but one night they hear a helicopter flying over the area — not something you expect in the middle of a wooded area — and Lily gets an alert on her phone that a prisoner escaped during a transfer and everyone should shelter in place. Amy, who has very bad anxiety issues, panics and Nate decides they should pack a few things and head out of the area, but the roads are blocked and the officer tells them the alert said to shelter in place. They head back to the house, and while Amy is trying to get to sleep she hears a thump and glass breaking downstairs. She and Nate go to investigate and the doors are wide open and a planter is broken on the floor. Before they know it, Tom and Rachel show up, fully armed, and do a sweep of the house, claiming they heard the sound of glass breaking from half a mile away. For the family’s safety, they invite the Lawsons to spend the night in their bunker where they will be safe. Nate convinces Amy to accept and all goes well, even though Amy is still a bit sketched out by the Sullivans. They return home the next day, even though there is no news of the escaped convict. Amy goes for a walk, alone, and notices Dylan and Tiana’s car door open with groceries laying about. She calls out to them and gets no answer so she enters the house, finds more rotting fruit and vegetables and … Dylan and Tiana dead on the floor, their throats apparently slit. She freaks out, and Nate and the Sullivans urge her to return to the bunker. They do, but as the days pass and Tom claims there has been no update on the prisoner, and that he has no Wifi even though he appears to be online doing his research, Amy notices a map of the area on the wall with photos of the residents and odd number codes. Nate seems to be getting along just fine with the Sullivans and Amy is growing more and more paranoid, getting to the point that she enlists Lily in a scheme to help get them out of the bunker. But as she begins to lose her mind, the situation becomes more complex. Are the Sullivans really a threat? Is Amy creating this entire situation because she’s having a mental breakdown? Or is there more to the story than is evident? And will any of them make it out alive?

The Couple Across the Street, written by Peter McLeod (Sinister Secret Ingredient, The Little Girl Who Lived), really is a slow burn of a thriller, almost to the point that you may begin to feel frustrated because nothing seems to be happening. But this is intentional as it allows us to ponder if the Sullivans are up to something — a bloody teddy bear in the storage room is concerning — or if the confinement is causing Amy to become unhinged and dangerously paranoid. She sees a threat to her family around every corner of the bunker (a really terrific set by Art Directors Cody Johnson and Steve Boisvert, and Art Director Tammie ‘Jake’ Walker), she goes snooping where she’s been told not to snoop, and she begins to construct her own narrative about the Sullivans that may or may not have any basis in fact. At one point she really pushes Rachel about a grandchild, trying to get an answer from her as to why there is a bloody teddy bear in storage without actually mentioning the bear, and she clearly sees how upsetting the subject is but Rachel does not give any details about whatever tragedy may have occurred. But Tom’s behavior also draws suspicion. He’s always communicating with someone via radio, he lies about the Wifi, and Rachel always seems to pop up to guide Amy away from his ‘hobby’. When Amy discovers that, in fact, the escaped prisoner was captured but the Sullivans are still keeping them in the bunker is when she snaps, and her wild accusations — not to mention that the got ahold of one of Tom’s guns and took the key to his ammunition lock box to load the weapon — surprises everyone else in the bunker. At this point, after seeing that Tom somehow has security cameras all over the place (he has video of Amy on the porch the day she found Dylan and Tiana, so he must have eyes on her house as well) leads her to accuse him of killing the neighbors, and now she is taking her family and getting out of the bunker. It all builds to a very surprising reveal as to what is actually happening, and it is totally unexpected. Great work on allowing that story to build slowly, give us all the misdirections without making them seem like misdirections, and surprising us at the end. Director Anjali Nayar, in her Lifetime movie debut, does a very good job at keeping the story moving without letting it become boring, and really has a grip on the actors, guiding them so that none of them ever gives away the surprise. Excellent work.

Lifetime

The cast is also terrific. Jenny Raven does a really good job of juggling the somewhat strained relationship with her daughter while trying to control Amy’s anxiety issues with words of affirmation and breathing so she can remain a functioning member of society. But she always keeps Amy’s paranoia just bubbling under the surface, perhaps a bit too much as it causes her to always have an attitude with the Sullivans that doesn’t seem deserved. When she kicks it into gear to ‘save’ her family, she manages to make Amy unhinged but not hysterical. She is in fight or flight mode at that point, but we’re never sure until the end if it’s she who has had a break with reality. Brett Geddes is also wonderful as Nate. He knows Amy has issues so he has to always be the one who balances her out. Sometimes he seems to come off as too overly optimistic and too trusting, especially where the Sullivans are concerned … but that could be because he is living in reality and Amy is in a paranoid delusion. Geddes always has a smile on his face, is always calm and controlled in scary situations, and always shows great concern for Amy’s well-being … which also points in the direction that Amy is the problem here. Presley Allard is fine as Lily, a quiet girl not thrilled with the move, with a shaky relationship with her mother, she goes with the flow because she really has no choice, and she seems to connect with the Sullivans. It’s only when she shows Lily’s anxiety about feeling trapped in the bunker that Amy snaps, and she lights up when she becomes part of the act to help get them out. She comes across as a very sweet young lady.

William MacDonald gives a very good performance as Tom, but for all of his skills learned during his time in the military, he makes Tom often appear a bit addled (and Rachel making excuses for him doesn’t help). But is he confused about things or is he watching every move that Nate, Amy and Lily make while in the bunker. Could he also be the cold-blooded killer who took out Dylan and Tiana? MacDonald does an excellent job at keeping you guessing. Ellen David is outstanding as Rachel, always appearing to be the kind of neighbor one would want. She makes Rachel appear to be the person who would go out of their way to help someone, she’s never overtly suspicious, but at the same time she always seem to be the one covering for whatever it is Tom may be doing. David is able give Rachel a sinister feeling any time she interacts with Amy, but then she seems perfectly normal when interacting with Nate and Lily, which also leads us to believe what we see through Amy’s eyes is not reality. David’s performance really makes us question everything without giving away anything. Max Laferriere and Yasmeen El Kha do a good job as Dylan and Tiana, laying the groundwork for Amy’s paranoia with the Sullivans. All of the players here do fantastic work.

The Couple Across the Street takes its sweet time building the mystery as it heads to its shocking climax, allowing the viewers to move through the story, forming our own opinions about what is happening and who to trust or fear, and by the end all of our expectations are completely and surprisingly upended. That is exactly what you want from a mystery. Too many of these quickly produced TV movies telegraph the end midway through the movie, but The Couple Across the Street will keep you guessing, leaving your jaw on the floor when the truth is revealed.

The Couple Across the Street has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.