Surprisingly well done! I expected much less, so I was very pleased. The movie starts out strikingly flashing forward to the sensual, last photo shoot between lovers Jodi and Travis. It then moves back to the beginning of a story of love, hate and obsession, a modern day fatal attraction parable. Males, beware of unbridled sex without love, it seems to say. There's always a price to pay. For Travis, it was the ultimate price.Based on the infamous and horrible murder everyone's heard about,it shows how two attractive, smart, young people, Travis and Jodi, meet, in a Sin City Convention. Travis is a motivational speaker. Jodi goes gaga over Travis. Soon, they make passionate love. She falls for him,strongly! Trying to be his significant other, she even becomes a Mormon like him. According to the well written, credible script, Travis, however,soon realizes Jodi is not marriage material.He takes his religion seriously, which requires chastity, but he can't stop having great loveless sex with Jodi! Travis loving, close Mormon friends think Jodi's unfit and obsessed, want him to get rid of her. So he goes underground with Jodi, as his "dirty little secret", for a sexual relation. When he realizes he's getting in over his head, that Jodi wants more,he tries to break off. She doggedly pursues him with menacing and sick stalking. Hurt and disenchanted that Travis has a new, marriage-material girlfriend, Jodi plans revenge by horridly killing him in a gruesome bloodbath.
Visually, the cinematography is stylish, with lovely bright, photography of their lovemaking leading to its horrible, almost unbearable-to-look-at climax, in slow motion.Other visual water tricks are awesome,as when the camera moves from the spiritual to the sensual, from Jodi's Mormon baptism to her cavorting in a Jacuzzi with Travis. The actors are an unexpected treat, both the main ones and the supporting cast. Tania Raymonde as Jodi is uncanny-even better than the real Jodi! She's alluring and sexy, totally credible as a wolfish seductress posing as innocent Little Red Riding Hood. In minutes, the real Jodi blends into Tania,we forget Jodi for this better version. Her characterization is as good as can be, sassy, alluring, sexy,creepy. Her innocent, little girl act is as good as Arias'. Her angry, evil persona is terrible and fearful. Her look as she shoots Travis in the final ritual sacrifice is frightful.. I also found Jesse Lee Soffer very suitably cast as Travis. At first he looks lightweight and boyish, but as the story progresses he develops Travis into the charismatic and attractive guy Jodi would fall in love with. Soffer plays Travis with the right blend of innocence and roguishness.The scripted role makes his characterization human, sympathetic and likable. Not much is made in the script of Travis importance as big brother to his siblings.But the movie does make his awful death heartfelt, poignant and tragic. One is left with a sad sense of the pitiful loss of a valuable human being by an obsessed and vengeful monster,
For a Lifetime movie, this movie surpassed all my expectations. The way the script treats Jodi's relation to her grandmother and friends humanizes her.It helps to soften her image without justifying her horrible deed. The last ten minutes summarizes the arrest and trial kind of shoddily, not enough development. One wishes to have it more leisurely treated in a Part II. Even as roughly sketched, Jodi's weird behavior during interrogation with Detective Alvarez and also, the subsequent Martinez badgering during the trial are witty and interesting, leaves you wanting more. This is certainly not a masterpiece, but as Lifetime movies go, an above average, respectable representation of a compelling real story. The fatal love story of Travis and Jodi is credible, engrossing, even thrilling. Would you believe the director's name is Jace Alexander, like the victim? Pretty good direction, for a speedy job.
Visually, the cinematography is stylish, with lovely bright, photography of their lovemaking leading to its horrible, almost unbearable-to-look-at climax, in slow motion.Other visual water tricks are awesome,as when the camera moves from the spiritual to the sensual, from Jodi's Mormon baptism to her cavorting in a Jacuzzi with Travis. The actors are an unexpected treat, both the main ones and the supporting cast. Tania Raymonde as Jodi is uncanny-even better than the real Jodi! She's alluring and sexy, totally credible as a wolfish seductress posing as innocent Little Red Riding Hood. In minutes, the real Jodi blends into Tania,we forget Jodi for this better version. Her characterization is as good as can be, sassy, alluring, sexy,creepy. Her innocent, little girl act is as good as Arias'. Her angry, evil persona is terrible and fearful. Her look as she shoots Travis in the final ritual sacrifice is frightful.. I also found Jesse Lee Soffer very suitably cast as Travis. At first he looks lightweight and boyish, but as the story progresses he develops Travis into the charismatic and attractive guy Jodi would fall in love with. Soffer plays Travis with the right blend of innocence and roguishness.The scripted role makes his characterization human, sympathetic and likable. Not much is made in the script of Travis importance as big brother to his siblings.But the movie does make his awful death heartfelt, poignant and tragic. One is left with a sad sense of the pitiful loss of a valuable human being by an obsessed and vengeful monster,
For a Lifetime movie, this movie surpassed all my expectations. The way the script treats Jodi's relation to her grandmother and friends humanizes her.It helps to soften her image without justifying her horrible deed. The last ten minutes summarizes the arrest and trial kind of shoddily, not enough development. One wishes to have it more leisurely treated in a Part II. Even as roughly sketched, Jodi's weird behavior during interrogation with Detective Alvarez and also, the subsequent Martinez badgering during the trial are witty and interesting, leaves you wanting more. This is certainly not a masterpiece, but as Lifetime movies go, an above average, respectable representation of a compelling real story. The fatal love story of Travis and Jodi is credible, engrossing, even thrilling. Would you believe the director's name is Jace Alexander, like the victim? Pretty good direction, for a speedy job.