Original Lifetime movies are the guiltiest of pleasures, right up with chain-Italian restaurants, Taylor Swift and Us Weekly. The great ones involve murder for hires, false identities, teacher/student affairs, babysitter/employer affairs and other inappropriate affairs galore.
They provide leading roles and great paychecks for leading stars of yesteryear like Heather Locklear in Angels Fall, Lisa Rinna in Another Woman’s Husband, Sean Young in A Job to Kill For, Cybill Shepherd in A Daughter’s Conviction and Daryl Hannah in All the Good Ones are Married.
Stealing jobs from former Melrose Place-ers, two-not-so washed up actors, mega superstars in fact, Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig are starring in their own Lifetime flick A Deadly Adoption premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 20.
From the trailer (embedded below), we see Ferrell and Wiig as a wealthy couple wanting to adopt a second child. (Second, if we assume the little girl shown is their daughter.) Advertised as being based on a true story, ripped from the headlines, perhaps?, they meet a potential birth mother, Megan Fox lookalike Jessica Lowndes, and soon trouble commences. Ferrell looks longingly while Lowndes sunbathes. Ferrell and Lowndes have a passionate pantry meeting. Lowndes rips Wiig off of a finance magazine cover, leaving only a stoically suited Ferrell. Ferrell pensively holds a pink negligee, assumedly not Wiig’s. In comes a young, tattooed, vintage truck driving, muscle t-wearing fellow (Jake Weary) who’s up to no good. “I’m scared,” their blonde child cries. “I’m scared too,” replies Ferrell. The trailer ends with rain, a truck swerving and a bloodied Lowndes pointing a gun.
They found the perfect director in Rachel Goldenberg, who’s resume is made mostly of directing and producing Funny or Die shorts, but has a couple of made for TV movies in her directing credits including 2012’s Love at the Christmas Table starring Danica McKellar, Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years, and '80s leading lady Lea Thompson. The script comes from former SNL writer Andrew Steele whose feature length films include the flops Casa de mi Padre starring Ferrell and The Ladies Man.
The question is, are they going to play it completely straight or throw in a pinch of satire and humor? Though listed on IMDB as part comedy, part drama and part thriller, the trailer shows a serious, for real, good ol’ Original Lifetime movie.
Though Wiig and Ferrell are comedic geniuses, it’s safe to wonder how much comedy can really come from the guy who wrote The Ladies Man? Traditional, funny or just plain absurd, I can’t wait to sit down with some Carrabba’s takeout and find out.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2015.