One Woman's Courage

RATINGS:

Screen Time: (6) He's got a character with actual plot relevance!
Woundage: (6) Well, he breaks his leg. But at least they put him in traction this time.

Aesthetics: (8) I really like this character. Can I have one?

Once again, the discriminating Blakefan is treated to Movie-of-the-Week fare- the sort that only gets rerun on Lifetime at 4 am. You know this story, as it's been told a million times before. A woman, in the face of adversity, finds a second chance at love and inner strength she didn't know she had. And surprisingly, this one isn't even based on a true story.

In a nutshell: Was the acting bad? Yes. Was the plot predictable and contrived? Yes. Did I often find myself calling out the next line of dialogue- verbatim- before the character said it, without previous knowledge of the movie? Yes. And finally, the most important question of all. Did I enjoy it?

The answer, unfortunately, is an unequivocal yes. I have finally owned up to the fact that I am a whore for contrived made-for-tv movies, and there's nothing I can do about it but occasionally indulge myself. Show me a Movie of the Week with a has-been sitcom actress rising up to combat her oppressive and/or threatening environment, and you will make me the happiest girl on Earth. Slap the name "Danielle Steel" onto something, and I dive for the couch. So much the better if it's a miniseries. Citizen Kane they're not. But for some reason, I can't stay away from movies like One Woman's Courage.

This gem of the small, square screen follows Patty Duke (our token has-been sitcom actress) as she has the rotten luck to witness a brutal murder (on Marjean Holden, no less, who also starred with Geoffrey Blake in The Philadelphia Experiment II). She's also an alcoholic. She's also got a cheating scumbag of a husband (Our token oppressive environment) and two grown children (which we will come back to later). When Patty testifies, she becomes a target for the psycho, who, of course, escapes from jail and starts stalking her.

Conveniently, Patty's husband has just left, so she's (cue scary music) alone in the house. She seeks protection from the hardened police detective assigned to the case. (Did I mention that both she and said detective are old? He's supposed to be mega-hunky, but he's just old. And so is she.) I think you know where that's going. After spending a lot of time together, the two decide they like each other, and they have sex. Leading up to the sex, I began to freak out. "Oh, please, don't show me the old people having sex," I mumbled over and over. Thankfully, the powers that be were kind to me, and the next morning the old people are both fully clothed, but possessing that post-coital glow all the same. Still too much information. But I'll live.

OK...remember how I said that Patty had kids? She does. She has two. A daughter and a very charming, sexy, intelligent, sensitive son. (Played by Guess Who.) He's a struggling artist who is apparently Patty's favorite. And for good reasons. Her daughter does not seem to care that Patty is being stalked by a psycho, but Geoffrey does. He invites Patty to stay at his house for awhile, which she does, and with his help, she finds The Inner Strength To Go On Despite Her Sad Circumstances And Her Alcoholism (tm). At about that time, the psycho shows up and hurts Geoffrey, because, like Emilio Estevez, it is in his contract to hurt Geoffrey.

Patty escapes unharmed. But it seems that no matter where she goes, she just can't seem to escape the psycho. She goes home. OH MY GOD!!!! He's in her house. She goes to church. OH MY GOD!!!! He's in the church! She goes to her son's house. OH MY GOD!!!! He drives a car through her son's front door (he lives in a loft, by the way) and runs him over! She goes back home. OH MY GOD!!!! He's in her house again! This ceases to become suspenseful, as you might imagine, and after awhile the viewer begins to take bathroom breaks right before the psycho shows up. (Especially after Geoffrey's untimely trip to traction-land.)

Honestly, Geoffrey's character, though the part is significant, seems like an afterthought. It was as though they finished the movie, realized that they were about 15 minutes under their time limit, and decided to give Patty a son and some artistic aspirations. ("Hmmm...yes, and then we'll break his leg," say the execs. This was particularly traumatic for me, as Geoffrey had broken his leg just that night before as I was watching The Tracker featuring Kris Kristofferson. My dad observed that at least it was the other leg, and at least the breaks occurred 100 years apart.) He's clearly the most talented actor in the movie (the psycho had these delusions of being Jack Nicholson, but we won't go there), and that is my completely unbiased opinion. There are several other questions that run through my mind (such as "What the hell kind of name is Ted, anyway?") but as this review is long (and parenthetical) enough, I will just recommend to my fellow made-for-tv-suspense-velveeta junkies that they see this movie for themselves and assess its strengths and weaknesses as an example of its genre.