LMN
LMN’s ‘Hateful and Grateful’ series of films continues, and even though Thanksgiving is still a few days away, the network is serving up some real turkey with this one.
Whispers of a Secret Life centers around BFFs Jess and Amanda, who have a website design company … or Jess does and Amanda is the graphic designer. While their business seems to be thriving, they suddenly lose their biggest customer in town so they need to scramble to find another business to fill that void. Jess is also interested in some organization called Harvest that whips its attendees into a frenzy, convincing them they can be millionaire businesspeople in the span of three years … for a fee, of course. Jess drags Amanda to a seminar, but Amanda is creeped out by the whole thing as any sensible person would be. Is it a pyramid scheme? Not exactly, because each attendee is a business owner and they are there to learn how to smooth talk people into using their services, not necessarily there it recruit new members. It’s all a bit off-putting and Amanda makes the correct decision to not attend another seminar. But Jess really, really wants her to but when she goes to Amanda’s house to pick her up … Amanda is laying on the porch in a pool of blood. Jess gets an ambulance and at the hospital, Dr. Ian McDreamy tells them it was a good thing Jess found her because she has a concussion and this one is serious because it’s her second. Wait what? Yep, she apparently shows signs of an old hairline fracture on her forehead but Amanda claims to have no idea what the Doc is talking about. But everyone goes on with their lives and Amanda still insists that she is not going back to Harvest and neither should Jess, but Jess seems to have become ‘teacher’s pet’ with spooky instructor Faye and her ever-morphing bangs (they literally change shape from shot to shot in one scene later in the movie). Faye also gets a little pissy whenever Jess tells her Amanda is not coming to another session, but it’s unclear why.
LMN
As time passes (about a month since following the opening of the movie it flashes back one month and then finally catches up to where we started) Amanda starts behaving … oddly. She flies off the handle if Jess dares look at her sideways, and Jess spots her on the street and follows her into a bar where she sees Amanda talking to a man who is not her husband. Amanda slips out the back and Jess has words with the man and follows Amanda outside but as Jess stands in the middle of the street, she just seems to fall down for no reason. Careful examination shows that just at the very bottom of the frame there is the whisp of what may be a hand, so Jess was actually pushed … and Amanda shows up just as a car nearly plows into Jess. Did Amanda push her friend? Who knows. I’m not sure the writers know. But Amanda is apologetic for her behavior, and Jess is forgiving … and she has great news! They have a new client, an antiques store owner who is also a member of Harvest. When they go to meet her, Amanda freaks out again and Jess has to bite the bullet and fire her from the company. Jess also calls Amanda’s doctor and tells him what has been happening with the wild mood swings, and then she convinces Amanda to make an appointment, which she does. Jess goes with her, and while some tests are being done she waits in the waiting room as hours pass. Jess finally asks a receptionist where Amanda is, and she’s told she left hours ago and they are about to lock the doors. Um, did no one think to ask the woman just idly sitting there why she was there, or to tell her that her friend ditched her? It’s even worse because Amanda was Jess’ ride!
Amanda keeps apologizing and misbehaving and apologizing to the point Jess almost has to sever the friendship completely, especially after a charcuterie board and pasta lunch ended with Amanda nearly gutting Jess in the kitchen, and even at Harvest Faye is getting on her case about not bringing Amanda back, but she entices Jess with the offer of free ‘tuition’ for the next level (now it’s sounding like Scientology), which is an amazing offer. Then Jess’ new client is murdered, Jess does something to cross Faye and gets her free ‘tuition’ revoked, someone stabs Faye … and none of this is making any sense. So we’ll cut to the chase — spoiler alert ahead — Harvest is a cult, Amanda was a member and her real name is Sarah. She’s married to the guy she was talking to at the bar, but she’s also married to Mike (and has a daughter). And the guy from the bar, Ted, is also very deeply involved with Harvest and he was the one who cracked Amanda’s skull years ago (like, many, many years ago, which would have made Amanda almost a child). So to keep everyone else safe, Amanda agrees to go off with Ted, but Jess catches up to them and Ted stabs her. Amanda picks up a rock and hits Ted in the head while she has the perfect shot … no, she inexplicably tosses the heavy rock to the very injured Jess who gives Ted a concussion … twice. Ted also kidnapped both Jess’ and Amanda’s daughters and had them tied up in the trunk of his car, but they are set free. Amanda is with Jess in the hospital, her husband comes in and she admits that her behavior was partly because of the concussion but mostly because of her old life coming back to haunt her because of Ted — who we assume bled out on the sidewalk in the park since he’s never mentioned again, but at least Faye is going to recover — and she was just overwhelmed and felt terrible that she’d let herself be so controlled. But she asks Mike to call her Amanda. That’s who she is now. Doctor Ian comes into the room and Amanda tells Mike it’s time to check up on the girls, wink wink, and Jess ends up with a dinner date. One month later, Jess and Amanda are full partners in the web design company — even Ian is celebrating with everyone so I guess that dinner went well — and all’s well that ends well. Except for Ted, I suppose. Can someone check up on him?
LMN
Boy, this one was tough to get through because as a viewer you never have a clue as to what’s going on. You never know why Amanda is so adamant that she’s not going back to Harvest, or why she insists Jess should not go as well (at the end she does admit that maybe she should have told her friend, and husband, what the hell was going on), or why Faye is on Jess’ butt so hard asking when Amanda is returning or why didn’t she bring Amanda with her. You also never know that Ted is part of Harvest, or that he actually IS the leader until someone figures out that his last name, Simon, is the name of the fake doctor, Dr. Monis, with the generic photo used on the flyers for Harvest (there were even some in Ian’s office, and he helped Jess learn that there was no Dr. Monis listed in any of his medical books or records). It’s not even clear how closely Faye was working with Ted, but knowing at the end what it was all about she clearly was trying to get Amanda back to Harvest for Ted. But if you like to play armchair sleuth while watching these movies, you would have been completely in the dark as to what it was about. Kelly Peters’ script had to do a lot of heavy lifting in the final scene to explain the previous 85 minutes, but by that point you may have just thrown your hands in the air and turned the channel. At least Damián Romay does a decent job directing the film, and there is one cool little effect where the picture jitters to signal something is going on with Amanda. But that happens just once. He also make good use of the Floridian locations (the film was shot in Broward County). But as a piece of entertainment, this one falls way short of being worth your time.
LMN
Perhaps the obtuse screenplay also contributed to the performances that were more soap opera than made-for-TV drama. Cait Moira as Amanda is given a role that requires her to be all over the place, and there are many times that I couldn’t tell if she was about to burst out laughing at the absurdity. Having to act mentally unstable and then apologize, several times, can’t be an easy or fulfilling role to play with such little motivation that it can be all summed up in two minutes at the end of the movie. It’s not a role that does her any favors as an actor. Brittany Cavaco fares only slightly better because Jess has a broader range of story, from dealing with Faye and Harvest, to trying to figure out what is wrong with her friend (until she can no longer deal with it), and even gets to hint at possible romance with Dr. Ian. But what is really nuts is that the story gives her a daughter, Olivia, of indeterminate age, probably supposedly a teenager as she occasionally babysits Amanda’s daughter who is actually a child. But Cavaco and Julia-Kate Hill never once feel like mother and daughter. It would have made more sense to make them sisters since, according to an internet search, Cavaco is 30 and Hill is 23. Yeah, there is a history of twentysomethings playing teens but Hill cannot pull that off. Or perhaps she could have if her mother in the movie was ten years older. Thinking about it now, perhaps it’s really the casting that makes this movie so bizarre and hard to follow because Jess, Amanda and Ted should all be much older than the actors portraying them. For their part, Trevor Lyons does do menacing very well as Ted, Sean Tapiero is the understanding husband Mike, and Chris Maher brings some, probably, unintentional humor to the role of Dr. Ian (reminding me of Beck Bennett in some SNL sketch instead of playing a dramatic doctor role, like when he enters the room at the end with a ‘hey hey’).
LMN
Whispers of a Secret Life also has a detective — but no black hoodied character — played by Andrea Conte. After several LMN movies where there were sympathetic cops for a change of pace, Conte revives the cop who really seems to be put out by having to help these women. Perhaps it’s because she seems to be the only detective in town (there is one other cop but he just gets laid out in Amanda’s house by someone … but he survives) and gets called to Amanda’s house when Olivia and Jess’ daughter Danielle think someone is trying to break into the house. It was just Amanda during another of her psychotic breaks. There is one point where Detective McAdams basically sneers at one of the women, showing nothing but contempt for them … and her job. The detective needs to find a job in which she does not have to work with the public, especially if she’s supposed to be helping people.
Whispers of a Secret Life is a hard one to recommend. I try to find something redeeming about the sometimes not-so-great movies LMN broadcasts, but this one is tough. The story is just difficult to figure out, and it’s hard to tell if the cast is floundering and just unable to find anything to help with their performances. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that they can find other projects with scripts and directors that will help them shine. Whispers of a Secret Life is not a project that shows them off at their best.
Whispers of a Secret Life has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
Why can’t I find out who plays Faye?
Aniela McGuinness plays Faye in Whispers of a Secret Life