Movie Review :: Lifetime Movie Network’s While They Were Sleeping

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LMN launches its ‘Shocktober” month of thrillers — which one would hope have some kind of Halloween or even Autumnal settings but are really no different that the fare the network broadcasts during the rest of the year — with While They Were Sleeping, which is hardly shocking and barely thriller but it gets the job done as a mildly entertaining mystery that will keep you guessing as the red herrings come flying left and right.

While They Were Sleeping — the most honest title of an LMN movie in quite some time — wastes no time in getting started as a hoodied figure enters a nice, up-scale home, creeps around and steps on a squeaky floorboard that wakes up teenage daughter Jess (the lightest sleeper in the world) but no one else, and enters the bedroom of Jess’ parents, shooting her father without waking up his wife right next to him (yes, the killer used a silencer but the sound it made was still louder than the squeaky floorboard). Cut to wife Zoe having her hands wiped down for gunshot residue by the police — she’s clear — and being interrogated by Detective-with-an-Attitude Rachel, who still treats Zoe as the prime suspect despite her utter shock and assertions that she did not kill her husband. When the detective goes to talk with Jess, she learns that Zoe is her step-mother so that only ups the detective’s suspicions despite Jess assuring her that Zoe has been nothing but kind to her and she had a great relationship with her father.

One thing leads to another and the police uncover some very compromising information for Zoe — a $2 million life insurance policy with her signature on it … but Zoe claims that she had no idea this existed and that her husband often signed things for her. Sure, Jan. Detective Rachel ain’t buying it but her partner Adam interrupts the questioning with some new evidence — the result of the one footprint of a boot found on the floor. Rachel shoos Zoe out of the office, and Zoe decides to become Jessica Fletcher and investigate the murder herself. Her friend Angie, a divorce lawyer, lets herself into Zoe’s house to leave a casserole in the oven (and it’s never clear who exactly Angie is until we see her cheering on her daughter at a school track meet where Jess is also one of the runners), but with the news of the insurance policy, she advises Zoe to lawyer up … and not her because she is not a criminal lawyer, conveniently (plus there would also be conflict of interest since they are friends). But out of the blue, Jess’ birth mother Robin arrives, wanting to spend time with her daughter at this terrible time, assuring Zoe that her past is in the past as she shows her a ‘Two Years Sober’ token to prove it. But somehow she and everyone else in town suddenly knows about that pesky insurance policy. Who blabbed? But Zoe is suspicious of Robin and her boyfriend Dean (who just looks like trouble), but Robin has an alibi for the night of her ex’s murder. Then it gets thrown into Zoe’s face that people are whispering about her relationship with Jess’ track coach David, and Det. Rachel now thinks the two were in cahoots and Zoe had Coach David kill her husband. Zoe tries to assure her that they are just acquaintances from school but the detective isn’t buying that either.

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Zoe has had enough of being accused and goes digging through Robin’s trash to find any evidence she can and what does she find at the bottom of the can? BOOTS! She takes them to the detective and slams them down on the desk only to learn they are the wrong size (and the wrong type of boot as well, but Rachel doesn’t mention that). They are looking for a size 10 1/2, which Rachel learned was Coach David’s shoe size when she questioned him about his relationship with Zoe. Zoe continues to do her own investigation and goes to the bar where Robin claimed she and Dean were the night of the murder, paying the bartender to show her the receipts from that night. But just as she hands them to her, Det. Rachel walks in and the whole investigation is now blown because she wanted to question the bartender and now he’s clammed up. Zoe could be facing an obstruction of justice charge at this point because of her interference. (At one point in the story, Rachel visits Zoe at home and lays out some story about her own sister’s murder which led to her becoming a detective, but it goes on for so long and has no real impact on the story that it seems inconsequential — it’s like when Phoebe Cates brings Gremlins to a screeching halt with her story about her father getting stuck in the chimney at Christmas.) By this point, even Jess is suspicious of Zoe so she decides to have a visit with Robin and Dean for dinner … and to stay the night (or several nights, as it seems she’s practically moved in). At Jess’ big track practice, Zoe arrives and sits with Angie, and it turns out Robin and Dean are there too and Robin is being very snide with Zoe, acting like she knows all about Jess’ track expertise even though she’s never been to a practice or a meet. But Jess collapses during one of the runs, which gives Zoe and Coach David a few moments to talk but it doesn’t seem to be anything more than friendly. Until the funeral of her husband. After everyone has left — and they scattered like roaches when the light comes on the second the minister finished his prayer — Coach David pops up out of nowhere to talk to Zoe again and — shocker — he plants one on her while there are still people clearly in the background. Zoe is shocked and pushes him away, but someone snapped a picture and sent it to the detective, which does not help Zoe’s case. Zoe admits to Angie that there was a little something between her and the coach because her husband was always focused on work and she was feeling a little ignored so she and Coach David had a few drinks one night and they did share a kiss, but nothing more. Angie thinks this will make Zoe seem even more guilty but she does not want to know any more (probably because if there is a trial, she will be called as a witness and will have to testify against her friend even though, to be honest, Angie seems a bit suss — was she having an affair with Zoe’s husband?). With the walls closing in on her, Zoe must do what she can to prove her innocence while also trying to keep herself alive after it is revealed that she was supposed to die that night as well so Jess could collect the insurance money. So who would have wanted them both dead? Is Jess that cold-blooded? Were Robin and Dean lying about being at the bar? Is Coach David in the clear? What about Angie? And how big of an apology does Detective Rachel owe Zoe?

While They Were Sleeping is a pretty effective mystery in the way it builds up the list of potential suspects, keeping you off guard for a good portion of the story. It really could have been Coach David at first since Zoe didn’t seem to be awakened by the gunshot. Was she pretending to be asleep? And why was the door at the back of the house unlocked? But once it’s revealed Zoe was supposed to die as well, he’s obviously just a red herring. Dean seems to be the obvious choice because of his demeanor throughout the movie, but Robin seems to be as innocent as she claims … until she begins to draw Jess closer to her. And that Angie just gives off weird vibes, like she knows more than she pretends. So there are a plethora of suspects which keeps you on your toes for quite a while. The one thing that is grating here is the way the Detective Rachel is portrayed, and this is a common complaint with these Lifetime/LMN movies — the cops rarely show any type of compassion for the people impacted by a terrible crime. They just come in hot with their sights set on the spouse or significant other, being overly aggressive with their questioning, and apparently doing all they can to prove they’re right while always then having to apologize and tell their suspect that they should have listened to them from the beginning. The writers, Brittany Underwood & Nick Roth, do try to soften Rachel a bit with that long-winded story about her sister but while she seems to be portraying some kind of vulnerability with Zoe, it also makes you wonder if she’s just lying through her teeth to get Zoe emotional enough to crack so Rachel can say ‘AH HA!’ and arrest her. In the end she congratulates Zoe for her sleuthing and invites her to join the force! Brittany Underwood also directed the film and she does a good job of keeping the secrets a secret, while also working with a crew that gives the movie a high quality look. No wobbly walls here.

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The actors all do some good work here as well. Alicia Leigh Willis as Zoe is very convincing as the wrongly accused woman. She is very authentic in her portrayal of shock at the beginning, showing concern for her step-daughter when she herself needs someone to lean on, and being rightfully frustrated by the detective’s constant accusations, going to great lengths to prove her innocence. Her performance is completely grounded and realistic. Dakota Volker as Jess is also good, even though she seems to get over her dad’s death quicker than she should, and is too easily swayed by Robin once she returns to the girl’s life. But she still feels like a real teenager. Taryn Nelson Di Capri is fine as Detective Rachel, but she is just too laser focused on Zoe, at least that’s how she plays it, rarely stopping for a moment to consider other possibilities, always coming down hard on her until that one moment of vulnerability that ultimately seems more like a trap. It’s hard to know if the portrayal was her own take on the character or if that is how Underwood directed her to act, but it would be nice once in a while to have a detective not being such a hard-ass and discount everything the person they want to be the culprit says.

Natalie Stavola is also very good as Robin, very convincing when she first comes to Zoe and Jess that she’s cleaned up her act and really wants time to reconnect with her daughter. But her performance becomes increasingly unhinged once it seems like she has Jess under her spell, taunting Zoe that she’s got her daughter back. Jason Pierce is perfectly cast as the guy from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s got the look and the attitude of a guy who would do anything for money, but he also manages to deflect any suspicions that may come his way. Adam Huss is also good as Coach David in his brief scenes, not giving away anything about his feelings for Zoe until that shock moment in the cemetery. Elena Hollander as Angie overplays the role a bit, always seeming like she’s just pretending to be surprised by everything Zoe tells her because she already knows the truth because she was behind the murder, one of those ‘if I can’t have you, no one can’ scenarios. Lifetime regular Alex Trumble shows up in a glorified cameo as Rachel’s partner Adam. I guess Roark Critchlow was busy that day.

Overall, While They Were Sleeping has high production value and a decent central mystery with plenty of suspects, but even at 90-minutes (without commercials) it still drags a little but the performances are engaging enough to keep you invested in Zoe’s quest to find the real killer. It’s not shocking or thrilling enough to be labeled as a ‘Shocktober” thriller, but it does what it set out to do.

While They Were Sleeping has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.