Lifetime
Lifetime’s ‘Sunday Night Thrills’ really stretches the meaning of the term with a movie that lacks any real thrills and comes off as more goofy than gripping.
Who Could Kill a Sweet Old Lady? begins with a scene, shot from afar for reasons that make sense in the film’s climactic moments, of the assumed titular ‘sweet old lady’ who sounds anything but sweet as she is apparently accosted by Lifetime’s trademark Black Hoodie villain. Now, right from the start, if you pay attention to the figure in said black hoodie, it is quite clear that the person is female so that is going to limit our suspects drastically. Right after the encounter — and we have no idea exactly what happened to the old lady at this point — a young, in-home nursing assistant, Edie, gets a call from her boss Bobby — who sounds more like a mob boss — about a job opening for a home-bound woman who also happens to be loaded. Edie needs the job, even though her pal Claire insists she give it all up and open a tea shop because Edie is a whiz with the leaves, but that takes money which Edie does not have. So she gets to the house, which is the same house from the opening prologue, and first meets the weird gardener, Mateo, and then the lady of the manor. Except no one answers the door when Edie arrives so she lets herself in and is immediately berated by said old lady, Ms. Linette Versterberg, who even though she is bound to a wheelchair, insists she needs no help and tries to shoo Edie away. Edie is nothing if not devoted to her career and her duty to her client, so nothing the lady can do will scare her away … not even the news that just the night before there was a break-in at the house, which apparently scared away the nurse Edie is replacing. When Edie calls Bobby to get more information, she finds out the nurse is actually in the hospital, unable to speak, she didn’t just run away as Linette claimed. She tries to insist that she does not need Edie, but Edie insists she cannot leave the woman alone, and before you know it there appears to be yet another break-in attempt at the house, but no one is found and the condescending police officer just thinks he’s dealing with two spooked females in a big, old house. Too big for two people, especially helpless women in his humble, unsolicited opinion.
Lifetime
Edie wants to hire security, but Linette refuses because of the cost. She does have a gate at her driveway, and security cameras, so how is someone getting onto the property? Turns out Mateo bumped a camera in a tree so it was facing up into the leaves, and there was a big hole in the fence surrounding the property. With everything secure, the house should be safe. To make things a bit more secure, and since Linette won’t pay for a security guard, Edie suggests the next best thing — a dog, so they go to a local shelter and adopt a pooch they name Killer. Mateo gets a kick out of the docile animal who barks at a whisper so they may not be as secure as Edie thinks. In fact, the alarm goes off again and the cops are getting tired of visiting. Perhaps the ‘guard dog’ set off the alarm. Edie gets lost in the house a few times, and finds her way into the basement … by falling down the stairs that she isn’t expecting behind the door she seems to think is her bedroom … and notices a foul smell. Linette angrily tells her to get out of the basement and they’ll deal with the smell later. Linette decides that she needs to go to the bank and dissolve all of her accounts, according to her financial manager, and when they get there the bank manager falls all over himself to assist because a woman of her stature rarely visits the bank, and he is quite clear in his statement that she needs no ID because he knows her face well. After taking care of business, Edie decides to bring Linette back to her house for safety, and game night, because there have been a couple instances of an odd man seeming to be following them. Edie even pepper sprayed him during one encounter, and not more than five minutes after getting to the house, the man shows up at her door. Before she can spray him again, he tells her that he’s a private investigator working for a man named Preston. Hmmmm, Edie answered the phone once and a man named Preston was on the other end, but Linette said it was a scam call so Edie blocked the number, and now Edie believes Linette may be suffering from dementia if she doesn’t remember Preston. So game night is over for them and Edie takes Linette back to her house, and Linette admits she does know Preston but he’s just trying to get her money. She also insists that Edie go back to her friends after the power goes out thanks to Mateo trimming a tree after sundown, knocking down the power lines to the house — sure, Jan — and enjoy the game night. As they all talk about what the old lady will do with her money, maybe give it to Edie, Edie thinks she might donate it to the animal shelter. She remembers they both had taken the same DNA testing, so she logs into Linette’s account and makes a shocking discovery — Preston is Linette’s cousin, and she recalls seeing the man approaching Mateo one day when she was picking up a prescription from John’s Pharmacy (sounds legit), so is Mateo the person trying to kill Linette? Edie rushes back to the house and finds the gate wide open, knowing she closed it (she had to do it manually because of the power), and makes a shocking discovery when she sees a figure in the garage, getting a knuckle sandwich in the process, and waking up in the basement tied to a chair, about to be flambéd by the person who has been attempting to steal Linette’s money … if it wasn’t for that meddling nurse. And Edie finally finds out what that terrible smell is in the basement.
Who Could Kill a Sweet Old Lady? is probably one of the goofiest ‘thrillers’ Lifetime has broadcast, and I’ll say it again, they really need to lean into the satire because this one really is on the verge of being a parody of a standard Lifetime thriller. The screenplay by Sarah-Doe Osborne shows off some of her inexperience in the thriller/mystery genre, with only a Christmas romance movie and one episode of a TV miniseries on her writing CV. Yes, there is a twist at the end, but there is just something about the main characters that don’t feel developed. Everyone has surface-level personalities, and I can’t for the life of me accept that the in-home nurse would constantly call her charge ‘boss’ all the time. ‘You got it, boss’, ‘Okay, boss’, ‘Right, boss’. Granted, I don’t know if a nurse would address their client by their first name, at least not at first, but it seems it would be more proper to at least address Linette as Ms. Versterberg. ‘Boss’ just makes it sound a bit snide or sarcastic, more of an insult from Edie. Also the character of Mateo makes little sense. Linette won’t pay for security but she has a full-time gardener? And she doesn’t like the noise his equipment makes during the day — he has to use a manual push mower to do the lawn — but he’ll chainsaw a tree after the sun goes down. What?! (Perhaps he thought she was with Edie at game night, so annoy the neighbors instead.) And he makes it clear he never goes in the house, but the next thing you know he’s cooking up lunch for everyone and getting involved in the mystery of the attempted break-ins. I suppose this is meant to make Mateo look like the guilty party, giving Edie a reason to assume it’s him even though she only saw him being accosted by Preston and had no context for what was going on. He just behaves weird, like he’s not really supposed to be there, so … big red herring! And then there is the male chauvinist pig … cop. Why is he such an ass? And even Edie’s friends are just types, but her friend Claire is just a bit much the way she is all googly-eyed over a cup of tea, calling Edie a wizard of leaves. Girl, chill. At least Linette is somewhat interesting and does show some different sides to her character. Director Tom Shell, who also directed the recent, and also odd, Sinister Secret Ingredient, with another sketchy senior citizen, proves that he knows how to direct a movie, everything on the technical side is top notch and there are no glaring continuity errors, like going from day to night in the space of an edit even though it’s the same scene, but as with that film I have to again question how he handles guiding the actors, because they just seem to have decided ‘I’ll play Edie all wide-eyed and eager to please’ or ‘I’ll play Mateo as if he really doesn’t belong here’ or ‘I’ll play Claire as a tea connoisseur’, etc. It just feels like Shell told people where to stand or walk and say their lines, while really attending to the lighting, which is pretty perfect, and camera movements and shots, editing in his head (which is likely how it has to be with these TV movies that shoot in less than two weeks in most cases). The biggest issue is the tone — is it a dark thriller, is it more light-hearted, is it a parody? No one seems to really know and that is a detriment to everyone involved. I’m also going to assume that since Shell was the voice on the phone in Sinister Secret Ingredient that he was also the voice of the unseen Bobby.
Lifetime
As for the cast, Alexandra Harris may be a bit too bubbly for this kind of movie, having starred in several Christmas movies and romantic dramas. She’s fine but she just doesn’t give Edie enough substance … and that could also be blamed on how the character is written and little guidance from the director. I feel like someone at Hallmark Channel should snap her up, give her a couple of supporting roles and then let her lead a holiday romance. She could become a new fan favorite in much lighter fare and that’s fine. Not everyone can manifest the darker aspects of a character needed for a thriller. Harris does try her best but she just feels miscast. Phillip Andre Botello as Mateo gives the same type of performance he did in The Woman Before Me, hemming and hawing his dialogue, seeming ill-at-ease, perhaps just trying to mislead the audience into thinking he’s the one trying to kill Linette, but he actually does give Mateo more confidence when he’s cooking lunch. There also seems to be some kind of awkward romance developing between Mateo and Edie, but it never goes anywhere. Laurie Cummings actually does a pretty good job with Linette, having to play the woman with many secrets while trying to give the impression she’s just an old curmudgeon (I’d hardly say she fits the title description of ‘sweet’). She’s gruff with Edie at first, but she does soften up, seeming to genuinely care for her, but at the same time she’s really just trying to get her out of the house. She does take a surprising turn in the climax, and that gives Cummings a chance to shine. She really knows the assignment and pulls it off with flair. The supporting cast is fine, with Aliyah Celeste making an impression as Claire, but who ever thought it was a good idea to cast a guy who looks like an angry biker as a private investigator should be reprimanded. If anyone saw this guy coming toward them, they’d likely get the same pepper spray greeting … especially if he knocked at their door.
When I started watching Who Could Kill a Sweet Old Lady?, I gave myself 30 minutes to decide if it was worth my time. Obviously I did stick it out, but only because it was so bizarre I couldn’t tear myself away from it. That may not be what anyone involved intended for the audience.
Who Could Kill a Sweet Old Lady? has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.