Lifetime Review: 'The Husband She Met Online'
Meredith Monroe falls for the "charm" of a possessive psychopath in this below average Lifetime thriller.
Sadly, Lifetime's 2013 installment in their "Met Online" series is the series' first misstep. With The Boy She Met Online and The Wife He Met Online raising the bar for Lifetime with excellent characters and surprisingly original plot, this film had a lot to measure up to and unfortunately fell below the bar.
The film's titular pronoun is event planner Rachel Maleman (Meredith Monroe), who is struggling to get back into the dating scene after breaking up with her unfaithful boyfriend/co-worker John Anderson (Brett Watson). But when Rachel meets Craig Miller (Jason Gray-Stanford) on a dating website, it appears he's all she's looking for. Handsome, charismatic, and the wealthy businessman running his mother's real estate company, Rachel soon finds herself falling for Craig when they finally meet in person.....
But by this point, it's already clear that Craig isn't the perfect gentleman Rachel sees him as. In addition to having had a friend hack Rachel to spy on her in the beginning of their relationship, Craig has the habit of writing Rachel's name dozens of times and following her without her knowledge. As John tries to win Rachel back and Craig becomes increasingly controlling of Rachel's life, Rachel's new beau (and eventual fiancé) starts to unravel as Rachel begins to learn the dark secrets of the man she's about to say "I do" for....
Meh. That word is the perfect descriptor for much of this movie. Unlike the previous iterations of the "Online" series, The Husband She Met Online is a play on a common Lifetime plot thread: the "Woman Falls In Love With A Psycho" thread. In the right hands, even the most basic plot can be made into something interesting and compelling, but that ingenuity is sorely lacking from this movie. While the plot has its' moments of enjoyable thrills, the story for the most part does not have enough steam to make those moments worth waiting for.
The storyline is additionally weakened by Craig Miller, the film's titular Husband. As played by Jason Gray-Stanford, Craig sorely lacks the depth, character development, or enjoyable psychosis present from Jake Byers and Georgia Meyers from the first two films in the "Met Online" saga. We're supposed to believe Craig is charming and charismatic, when in actuality, his "romantic" acts of wooing Rachel come off as cold and calculated. This not only hurt Craig's character, it also results in Rachel coming off as overtly naive not to catch on to his obvious instability until it's too late to escape him. Even Craig's actions after he goes over the edge are subdued at best, making him boring as well as unconvincing.
It's a shame the plot and Stanford were so underwhelming, as the rest of the cast did the best they could. Meredith Monroe does the best she can to make Rachel a likable protagonist, despite having very little to work with. Damon Runyan also gives a surprisingly compelling role as Craig's troubled brother Ryan, giving his underutilized role some much needed emotion and depth. The third act of the film also saves Rachel's character mildly, as this is the point where she finally notices Craig's possessive and controlling behavior, with her suspicions starting before she received an exposition dump from a detective who has investigated Craig in the past. These are small things, but they save the film from total devastation.
Overall, The Husband She Met Online was a disappointment after the great leaps being made by its' cinematic predecessors. While it's not a painful movie to sit through, it's certainly something that even hardened Lifetime lover won't be impressed by.
Score: 4 out of 10 Styrofoam wedding cakes.
About the Creator
Trevor Wells
Aspiring writer and film lover: Lifetime, Hallmark, indie, and anything else that strikes my interest. He/him.
Twitter: @TrevorWells98
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