User reviews

This is an unusual TV thriller starring Lisa Hartman Black as Miami psychotherapist Kris Morrow, who has been consumed by a patient of hers that keeps fantasizing about killing her abusive husband.

The premise of a captivating story is there, with Hartman Black as a good lead for the movie, investigating her mysterious patient and trying to keep up with her every move. It makes you wonder if some heinous crime might take place, throwing the plot into further suspense. Unfortunately, much of the story suffers from a loose plot that goes all over the place, taking your attention in all directions and confusing the viewer.

The relationship between Kris Morrow and her patient Lila fall apart as the movie progresses, taking viewers away from the main point of the movie and then given doses of the private investigator subplot, which doesn't blend in well with the movie's pacing.

The supporting characters like the police detective and security guard could have lifted the movie, but they weren't utilized enough.

It wasn't all bad, but, I've seen better TV thrillers.

Grade C-

Lisa Hartman is cast here as Kris Morrow, Miami-based psychotherapist whose specialty, abusive sexual relationships, brings her into contact with Lila, a patient whose revelations emphasizing the sado-masochistic nature of her marriage, unsettle Kris to a level jeopardizing a doctor-patient association. When Kris becomes obsessed with her new lover, Charley Lapidus (Philip Casnoff), to a degree that she believes will interfere with her ability to treat Lila, she requests that an alternate therapist (and former lover of Kris), Victor Lange (Christopher McDonald), take over the case, leading to a situation that causes Victor to harbour suspicions of Lapidus, a private investigator searching for Lila, who may have murdered her spouse. This is rather a bit of a tangle, but there is yet more trouble in sight when Lila does in fact confess to Kris that she is indeed a murderess, and additionally enamoured of Kris who is also attempting to locate the increasingly evasive woman before the police can do so. That excellent player Tom Noonan produces and scripts this film, but his writing talent must be ranked below his skill as an actor since his plot is riddled with weaknesses in logic and character development, not lessened by continuity flaws that increase as the story moves along. The cast performs well together and Hartman is vividly appealing in her erratically structured role, with Casnoff and McDonald giving solid performances, but there is no saving a film that steadily declines into a patently silly and predictable affair. There is another positive contribution that shall be noted: splendidly creative effort with camera and lighting from cinematographer Bernd Heinl and his crew, whose compositions are consistently inventive and, despite being in service to an inferior production, they provide pleasures independent of the hackneyed scenario.