Saturday 13 August 2011

Blindsided by Debra Winger

Next time I watch a cheesy Lifetime movie, I'm going to Google it first so there are no nasty surprises.

Had an evening to myself.  Dreamt of going big. Movie theatre or Video Store.  Ultimately surrendered to the Lifetime network and one of its faithful stars, Debra Winger.

Single mother, four kids, tons of bills.  Mom lands great job, meets fabulous guy, gets debilitating disease.  That's what I call a Saturday night.

Mother overcoming disease, learning to walk and talk again.  Boyfriend sticks by her.  Kids make a schedule and post it on the fridge.  Perfect.

*Five years later* some of the actors have been replaced, Debra and Boyfriend are married, one of the kids gets engaged.

Next thing you know, with like twelve minutes left, Debra drops the youngest kid off at school and her classmate turns around to show the name on his varsity jacket.  Columbine High School.

You're not serious.

Yes, they were serious.

In the final seven minutes of the two hour and thirty nine minute movie, the youngest daughter (spoiler alert) gets shot and killed in the Columbine massacre.

Turns out it was based on a true story.  I obviously should've gathered a little more information going in.

There's some Chekhov quote about how if you are going to use a sword to kill someone in the third act, you should have it hanging on the wall in the first act. And the reverse is also true - if you're going to have a sword hanging around throughout the show, it should at some point be used to kill someone.

Nice that she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for this role.  Maybe she should have spent a little more time reading Chekhov.

I want to believe that Valerie Bertinelli would've had the decency to warn me.

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