ANN RULE’S CIRCLE OF DECEPTION

US, 2021, 87 minutes, Colour.

Diane Neal, Tahmoh Penikett, Tamara Tunie, April Telek, Viv Leacock, Paul McGillion, Jill Morrison.

Directed by Ashley Williams.

This is a Lifetime television movie, the second film based on popular novels by Ann Rule.

This is a mixture of soap opera and melodrama, in the characters, their performances, the dialogue. It will not be to the taste of those who want something more substantial even in their telemovies.

The setting is an island off Washington State with excursions to Las Vegas and Florida. It opens with a murder, going back year, the audience seeing who the murder victim is and his connection with various characters.

This is a film in which none of the central characters is at all likeable. The only sympathetic characters are the detectives investigating the case. The narrative is told by a middle-aged matron, played by Diane Neal, who could pass for Jennifer Coolidge in the past. She is a go-getting, unscrupulous, ultimately conscience-less woman who sets her sights on a man who turns out to be a no-good, who resents his stepfather’s brutal behaviour, declares that he would really like to kill someone. And he does. There is the victim who seem sympathetic, especially with his daughter, but is carrying on affair, betraying his wife. She ought to be more sympathetic but is moody, erratic behaviour, asking for restraining order, stopping it when there is a possibility of reconciliation, completely impassive when informed of her husband’s death and more preoccupied with his life insurance policy. There is also the central character’s half sister who is prepared to give testimony against her but kills herself. The No-gooder goes back to his wife who loves him despite everything and her drug addiction habits.

The dialogue is very ordinary, the situation is highly contrived, not a film to put on one’s must-see or even see-list.