Double Life review

May 10, 2023 Jeffrey Lyles Aaron Douglas, Carmen Moore, Double Life, Javicia Leslie, Martin Wood, Pascale Hutton

Double Life tries to be a competent mystery thriller but fails to overcome its made for Lifetime premise. In fairness though a decent amount of Lifetime movies pack more thrills and suspense than this credibility-challenged effort.

Jo (Javicia Leslie, Batwoman) and Sharon (Pascale Hutton) have something in common. Well, more like someone — Sharon’s husband, Mark (Niall Matter) — who’s been sleeping around with Jo and coming home to Sharon.

Don’t worry, Mark isn’t a complete cad or at least that’s what screenwriter Chris Sivertson intends as he attempts to clean up Mark’s messiness by providing a reason for his infidelity. Mark can’t do it himself since he gets killed early on, leaving both Jo and Sharon trying to make sense of who would want to kill their man.

There’s no credible way for Sharon and Jo to strike a bond especially with Jo knowing the truth about Mark’s affair. Sivertson clumsily tries to come up with some justification, but it’s never feels plausible that Sharon would want anything to do with Jo and it’s too high a narrative mountain for the film to ever scale.

And while this leans into the scorned woman cliche, the last thing two women who’ve been cheated on would want to do is find out who killed him. If anything, they’d be fine not getting caught up in any more of Mark’s messes. It’s one of those situations where it seems like Sivertson would have benefited from collaborating with a woman screenwriter who could make some of those scenes sound more authentic.

Sivertson works in some weird running jokes about people repeatedly expressing their grief over Mark’s death as if that’s something they should stop doing. If anything, Sivertson should have gone wilder with the script just to shake things up and be more ludicrous like some of the more memorable Lifetime movies.

Here, the stakes are decidedly low threat as the main goons would have to step up their game to be incompetent. Jo and Sharon have no experience working together, but continually evade their captors are one stooge short of a set.

Another low-key problem is this is the kind of a ridiculous premise that needs everyone to fully commit to its absurdity. Director Martin Wood (Operation Christmas Drop) doesn’t want to play along and takes on the Herculean task of trying to attach logic to the film.

Wood approaches Double Life as if this were a long-form pilot for a series that will work as soon as he gets past the initial awkward connection.

Leslie and Hutton put up a valiant fight to make for a solid, if unlikely pairing. Jo is the rough and rugged partner with all kinds of tech and fighting skills she learned from an ex. Sharon can be the naive, but willing partner who can get into different arenas than Jo.

Det. Carmen Traxler (Carmen Moore, The Flash) even keeps referring to Jo and Sharon as “junior detectives.” It’s too easy to envision every episode ending with Traxler reluctantly admitting they were a big help in closing a case.

There’s a twist in the final act that almost makes up for the lack of goofiness the rest of the way, but it’s executed so badly it’s more embarrassing than enjoyable in a bad theater kind of way.

Double Life probably would make for a fun and silly series in that Rizzoli & Isles vein, but as a standalone film? It’s not even worth its first shot of life.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Photo Credit: Paramount Global Content Distribution

Rating: 4 out of 10

Leave a Reply Cancel reply