This diverting piece of nonsense is genuinely entertaining in its bland simplicity. Danica McKellar is a happy suburban housewife with a decent job, a beautiful child, and a husband who is a police officer. Everything is hunky dory. Little does she know (although the viewer guesses immediately) that trials and tribulations lay just around the corner.
A woman is beaten to death with a tire iron in the same parking lot used by McKellar. Circumstances build up against her. Her hair was found on the victim's body. An eyewitness saw her cleaning blood from a tire iron before disposing of it. She's arrested and thrown in jail. Her husband, not knowing what to think, packs up without warning and leaves with their pretty little girl, whose mind he subsequently poisons against her. She's suspended from her job.
So far -- and throughout -- the story is archetypal: a woman falsely accused, gossiped about, deserted by everyone, empowers herself, defeats her enemies, and finds true love.
That's it, in a nutshell, but a few more details are worth while. First, all men are beasts. They're all smug, arrogant, and hateful. The only male who actually comes across as an actor is a former football player, Fred Dryer, who takes his time to work through his oversimple character. He's almost the only believable performer in the movie. And I don't say that just because he and I share an alma mater. Well, there is one more relatively subtle performance, and convincing too. The witness who falsely claims that McKellar assaulted her with a music stand in high school. I think her name is Jennifer Blanc. She should have been the lead. McKellar herself is cute enough and has a neat figure but the role compels her to act dumber than she turns out to be, and her voice is a strident version of a Valley Girl's.
About two thirds of the way through, the helpless heroine, adrift in an antagonistic world, inexplicably finds herself and demolishes the case against her with confidence and aplomb. The end.
A woman is beaten to death with a tire iron in the same parking lot used by McKellar. Circumstances build up against her. Her hair was found on the victim's body. An eyewitness saw her cleaning blood from a tire iron before disposing of it. She's arrested and thrown in jail. Her husband, not knowing what to think, packs up without warning and leaves with their pretty little girl, whose mind he subsequently poisons against her. She's suspended from her job.
So far -- and throughout -- the story is archetypal: a woman falsely accused, gossiped about, deserted by everyone, empowers herself, defeats her enemies, and finds true love.
That's it, in a nutshell, but a few more details are worth while. First, all men are beasts. They're all smug, arrogant, and hateful. The only male who actually comes across as an actor is a former football player, Fred Dryer, who takes his time to work through his oversimple character. He's almost the only believable performer in the movie. And I don't say that just because he and I share an alma mater. Well, there is one more relatively subtle performance, and convincing too. The witness who falsely claims that McKellar assaulted her with a music stand in high school. I think her name is Jennifer Blanc. She should have been the lead. McKellar herself is cute enough and has a neat figure but the role compels her to act dumber than she turns out to be, and her voice is a strident version of a Valley Girl's.
About two thirds of the way through, the helpless heroine, adrift in an antagonistic world, inexplicably finds herself and demolishes the case against her with confidence and aplomb. The end.