Let's Leave the Lifetime Movies to Lifetime, Shall We Netflix?

Netflix’s Brazen attempt to rip-off
Lifetime schlock.

Last December I cancelled my subscription to the Lifetime Movie Club. Though the service brought me plenty of joy for the year I had it —not to mention material—it was beginning to bring more sighs and shrugs than shits and giggles. The monthly $4.99 subscription fee may not be much, but it’s too much to spend on meh.

Besides, subscribing to whole other streaming service might not be necessary. In its desperate bid to become our everything, Netflix has been offering its own versions of Lifetime movies, because it knows that the one thing viewers crave when subscribing to a streaming service is basic cable content. Last month I watched Netflix’s stab at Hallmark/Lifetime’s stab at schmaltzy holiday inclusivity, the sugar-coated gay romcom Single All the Way. This month, I decided to check out the streaming service’s new Lifetimey thriller, BRAZEN, starring Alyssa Milano, a weirdly controversial casting choice.

Milano plays Grace Miller, an author of mystery novels and thrillers that are so popular that her bookstore appearances are standing room only.

Her books may also be the only ones stocked in this mall atrium.

Grace’s latest novel is Brazen Virtue, the same title as the Nora Roberts’ novel on which Brazen is based. How meta! The passage Grace reads from it, describing an “unremarkable” murder victim and wondering if she had a secret life, might have counted as foreshadowing if Brazen had the patience to let us discover those secrets in due time, instead of revealing them in the movie’s prologue. Grace’s readers are enthralled and applaud as if they just heard Beyoncé perform her latest. “That was the best turn-out we’ve had all year,” gushes the bookstore’s manager. “Keep writing, Grace Miller. You’re the best.” Interestingly, her fans keep their distance, which is telling because wait until you get to know Grace!

You see, Grace is supposed to be a strong, confident woman. Unfortunately, to convey her strength screenwriters Edithe Swensen and Donald Martin have made her into a self-satisfied asshole, someone who is superior in all things, be it investigating crimes or uncorking wine bottles. Of course, her greatness comes at a cost: all other characters must be slightly (or a lot) dumber. Near the movie’s climax, she actually tells a police captain to make sure the evidence they have on a suspect is solid to ensure the arrest sticks. That the captain doesn’t respond with a well-deserved “No shit, Sherlock” should tell you how far up Grace’s ass this movie is.

Despite Grace’s grating personality, she is the first person her sister Kathleen (Emily Ullerup) calls when she needs help. Grace immediately ditches her book tour to fly to D.C. so she can criticize her sister’s taste in wine, as well as pointedly bring up Kathleen’s past mistakes: a disastrous marriage, a drug addiction (just pills; she wasn’t a filthy heroin addict or scabby faced tweaker), leaving her son behind when she left her husband.

Kathleen assures Grace that she’s gotten her shit together. She’s kicked “the meds” and is now teaching English at an exclusive private school. She’s also decided to fight to regain custody of her son. Because this is an expensive undertaking, she needs money, which is why she called Grace—not for a loan, but for Grace to consent to a second mortgage on the house they inherited from their parents and that Kathleen now lives in. Grace, likely thinking, I cut my book tour short for this?, is dubious the loan will provide enough money to finance the impending legal battle, but Kathleen assures her she’s working on “other things” to raise the money.

But enough about Kathleen and her problems. The next morning, while Kathleen’s at her day job of teaching rich kids about Shakespeare, Grace tries to work on a new book but can’t concentrate because her sister’s neighbor keeps firing up a buzzsaw every few seconds. Grace, incensed that someone would have the audacity to work on a construction project at 10 a.m. on a weekday, complains because of course she does. But then, upon seeing that the neighbor is played by Sam Page, decides to make peace and bring him an empty mug that she says contains coffee. The neighbor, Ed, doesn’t do caffeine, but Grace forgives him because it turns out that Ed is a huge fan of her work. Making the previous sentence a bit more implausible is that Ed is also a detective on the D.C. police force. A cop who doesn’t consume caffeine? I’m not buying it, just as you won’t buy that he’s immediately attracted to Grace, but who knows. Maybe her books are just that good.

Sam Page (left) is ready to be your new Greg Evigan.

Their unlikely romance stalls temporarily when Grace returns from her first date with Ed to discover Kathleen murdered. She also discovers the nature of the “other things” Kathleen was working on to pad her bank account: doing cam shows as a dominatrix named Desiree. 

Beats the hell out of being an Uber driver.

We in the audience knew this secret already as it’s revealed before the opening credits, presumably to hook us with the salacious stuff. Except Kathleen’s kinky internet show is tame enough to make her viewers think they’ve accidentally logged on to Disney+ (“Well, I guess I can rub one out to Maleficent.”) I’m not suggesting she be wearing nothing but thigh-high boots and a clit ring, but maybe spice things up with some puppy play, or leading her viewers through elaborate omorashi scenarios instead of this tired whip cracking crap.

But I digress. The prime suspect is Kathleen’s ex, Jonathan (David Lewis). David is a smug prick, but he’s got an air-tight alibi and he’s too obvious besides. He also provides Brazen with its best scene.

Grace, perfect at everything else, also throws a mean left hook.

Finding Kathleen’s killer is further complicated when other online dominatrixes are murdered. Now there’s the possibility that the cops are dealing with a serial killer, one who is targeting PG-rated doms. Seriously, movie, no one is paying $40 a month to watch moms do steampunk cosplay.

Especially when they wear their Maidenform One Fab Fit®
underneath their leather corsets.

But stopping a serial killer isn’t the only thing the cops are up against. They also have to contend with Grace’s “help.”

Though Ed was given a week off for solving a big case (or maybe he’d already put in for the time, which is more believable), he forfeits his PTO in favor of investigating the murder of his love interest’s sister. No good deed goes unpunished, of course. Grace doesn’t just do the typical mystery/thriller thing of trying to solve her sister’s murder on her own, or even unofficially assisting Ed on the downlow. No, she wants to be an active member of the investigating team—and Ed’s captain (Alison Araya) allows it.

With Grace now appointed as a consultant, Ed and his partner Ben (Malachi Weir) are now having to suffer her company as she accompanies them to interview suspects. Ben is strangely accepting of this arrangement, but then, Ben’s a pretty chill guy. Yet even Ben gives their “consultant” an eat shit look when she barges into a meeting between the detectives and the captain to share evidence she’s turned up from her solo sleuthing.

When their two most likely suspects/obvious red herrings are cleared, there’s only one thing left to do, and that one thing telegraphed by a lingering shot of one of Kathleen’s leather costumes laid out on display on the bed of her “dungeon.” 

The star of Poison Ivy II shows us she’s still got it!

Safe to Assume the Book is Better

Phone sex was Kathleen’s
porny source of extra cash in
the book as it was originally
published in 1988.

I’ve only read only one Nora Roberts novel, ever: Montana Sky. An aunt gave it to me, evidently thinking I’d read anything plucked from a CVS book rack (that’s fair). I thought it was all right, but not really my thing. The only part of the book that stuck with me was a sex scene in which a character rides her lover “hard and fast and well.” Still, while I’ve never read Roberts’ Brazen Virtue, I think I can say with some confidence that the novel is better than its Netflix adaptation.

It’s not that Brazen is a complete piece of shit. Monika Mitchell’s directing is competent if uninspired and, apart from some flat performances by actors in minor roles, the acting is decent enough, though no one should hold their breath for an Emmy nomination. It’s just that the movie is so goddamned soulless. It’s a thriller without suspense; a romance without heat. As irritating as I found the character of Grace (just the character; Milano’s performance is fine), hating her was what kept me invested in the movie. That, and hoping Sam Page would strip down to boxer briefs at some point (spoiler: he doesn’t). You’d do better to just watch an episode of Law & Order: SVU.

At the end of the day, the only thing that sets Brazen apart from any other Lifetime movie is it’s on Netflix. I don’t think I’d be any more forgiving had it been an official Lifetime movie, but then my expectations would be calibrated accordingly. On Lifetime, Brazen would rank among its more mediocre offerings—too proficient to enjoy ironically, not good enough to merit anyone’s time. On Netflix, it’s just one more example of the streaming service’s putting quantity over quality. If $4.99/month is too much to spend on meh on the Lifetime Movie Club, Netflix’s (increasing) fees are tantamount to robbery. Considering Netflix’s recent numbers, the streamer might do better to focus less on trying to be all things to all viewers and more on offering content that’s actually worth watching.

Short Takes: 'The Hater' (2020) ★★★

Director Jan Komasa’s The Hater (Sala samobójców. Hejte) is about a young Polish man who finds success by using social media to foment hate and paranoia. Which, too soon?

Making it a little easier to watch is the decision to tell the story more as a slow-burn, semi-satirical thriller than a drama about far-right politics. Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski), the titular hater, begins his journey to becoming a Machiavellian master of media manipulation from a place of failure. He’s kicked out of law school for plagiarism, then has his heart broken when he learns what his childhood crush Gabi (Vanessa Aleksander) really thinks about him. The latter happens via some DIY electronic eavesdropping, which should teach Tomasz a lesson. It does, but it’s the wrong one.

Tomasz talks his way into a job at an ethics-averse PR firm, quickly rising through the ranks when he launches a successful smear campaign against a client’s rival, to the delight of his boss Beata (Agata Kulesza), who cackles maniacally watching the rival’s tearful apology video, and the ire of her abusive asshole right-hand Kamil (Piotr Biedron). Tomasz is then tasked with getting dirt on Pawel Runicki (Maciej Stuhr), a progressive candidate in Warsaw’s mayoral race (you can see Tomasz’s ears perk up when he’s told bugging offices isn’t off the table). He outs Runicki as a homosexual, but that causes only a momentary dip in the candidate’s numbers. Far more successful are Tomasz’s xenophobic and Islamophobic posts, of which we’re all too familiar. But Tomasz isn’t content to just fan the flames; he wants to cause an explosion, and so he recruits Guzek (Adam Gradowski), a neck beard who vlogs about his love of guns and hatred of immigrants, to be his detonator.

The Hater is a sequel to Komasa’s 2011 film Suicide Room. I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I’ve read it’s also a story about the evils of social media, only focusing on one of its victims. In The Hater, Tomasz is on the other side, doing what he does for no greater reason than the thrill of stirring shit up, regardless of the politics (he has no qualms about playing both sides). He’s not a white supremacist, he’s a budding sociopath. Musialowski’s performance as Tomasz keeps us guessing by showing us occasional flashes of empathy or fear, but by the movie’s end he’s gone full Patrick Bateman—or Damien.

The movie has its weaknesses. Much of Mateusz Pacewicz’s script is a bit too on-the-nose, as if it is illustrating key points culled from a Polityka article examining the forces behind democracy’s decline, with some characterizations being less satirical than full-on parody (the mustache-twirling villainy of Beata and Kamil; Gabi’s liberal elite parents). Luckily, Komasa and his cast manage to keep the story grounded, even during some of its more far-fetched moments. The Hater is still a good movie, it’s just not a good time.

Short Takes: 'Something Weird' (1967) ★ 1/2

I have the same co-dependent relationship with Herschell Gordon Lewis’ work that I have with Jess Franco’s: I know he’ll probably let me down, but I keep coming back because he showed me a good time once or twice. I came to my senses years ago with Franco (OK, I watched Bloody Moon last year, but what can I say? I’m weak), but I keep holding out hope that the next one of Lewis’ movies I watch will be a diamond in the rough like Suburban Roulette or Scum of the Earth or will at least equal the awful/awesomeness of The Blood Trilogy. It was this hope that led me to watch Lewis’ 1967 movie Something Weird.

The movie gets off to a haphazard start, opening with the murder of a woman by an unseen assailant, then jumping to a martial arts lesson in which the student and the teacher—both middled-aged white guys—demonstrate they still have a lot to learn. Then the martial arts student, Alex (wooden William Brooker), is about to get busy with a young lady when the movie smash cuts to a scene in which engineer Mitch (smarmy Tony McCabe) is electrocuted. Something Weird decides to stay with Mitch for a while, revealing that though the near-fatal jolt of electricity scarred his face beyond the repair of plastic surgeons, Mitch did get some psychic powers in the bargain. Mitch doesn’t seem to give two shits about his new power, squandering it by telling fortunes at $2 a pop.

Enter “the Hag” (Maudite Arums), who claims to have powers of her own: if he agrees to become her lover, she can restore Mitch’s face. Though the pair have the hammiest-member-of-the-high-school-drama club acting style in common, Mitch doesn’t think he can get it up for a woman with a face covered in green makeup and spitball warts. He changes his mind when he discovers that, after a forced kiss, the Hag transforms into a beautiful, vacant blonde named Ellen (Elizabeth Lee, who might be a sentient department store mannequin).

With his face now free of papier mâché scars and Ellen by his side, Mitch starts exploiting his special talent to the fullest by making a series of TV appearances, which attracts the attention of FBI agent Alex. You remember Alex, from earlier in the movie? Yes, that’s right, the failing judo student. (Or was it karate? It doesn’t matter.) Alex is trying to solve a series of grisly murders (also from the film’s beginning) and thinks someone with Mitch’s abilities might be able to help him in his investigation. To help Mitch, he offers the electric engineer-turned-psychic some chemical help: “What I have here is a drug, called LSD. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.” Mitch's trip and that murder investigation are put on hold, however, when Alex meets Ellen. Fuck getting a killer off the streets, Alex has got a hard-on!

Something Weird has its moments, including a WTF sequence when Alex is attacked by his own bedding, the camera capturing the dental floss used to manipulate the homicidal blanket, and some of Lewis’ signature gore, including a wig stand woman’s head set on fire. Unfortunately, while Something Weird lives up to its title, much of it also pretty fucking boring, having more in common with She-Devils on Wheels than Two Thousand Maniacs. The barely comprehensible story might be from the mind of screenwriter James F. Hurley, but this is very much an HGL movie. I could maybe forgive the bad acting and static camera work if I were able to overcome the overwhelming ennui felt watching it. It’s not the worst of Lewis’ movies I’ve seen so far, but that’s not saying much. At the end of the day, you’d do better to check out the video company that took its name and logo from Something Weird than watch the actual movie.

A Gay Glucose Drip for Christmas with a Booger Sugar Chaser

My husband had this to say about Christmas movies: “You can go schmaltzy or take the piss out of the holiday. Neither the twain shall meet.” Though there have been a few exceptions (A Christmas Story, kind of), he’s right. As far as holiday movies are concerned, Christmas is a time of either sugary sentimentality or unbridled debauchery (or terror), no mixing.

Now that holiday movies are trying to be a little more inclusive—and I stress a little— studios might also want to try to combine sappy and the cynical. And who better to tie the nice, the gaudy and the naughty into one fabulous bow than the queer community? I’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, the Netflix movie SINGLE ALL THE WAY would be the one to break down this barrier between the sentimental and the salacious.

I took the inclusion of Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge in Single All the Way’s cast as a good sign, and though I’ve been burned by Netflix queer content before (the platform’s 2019 version of Tales of the City qualifies as a hate crime, against Laura Linney if not LGBTQs), I held out hope that since Netflix wasn’t bound by the same restraints as the Hallmark Channel, its queer holiday movie would at least spike its eggnog.

The opening scene suggests this gay Christmas might be
a little sexier.

Netflix decided to go another way, which is to say they decided to go the same way: same as Hallmark, same as Lifetime.

Michael Urie tries his best to act against
Tim Lund’s wig-like hair.

Peter (Michael Urie) lives in Los Angeles, works for a social media marketing company but his true passion is plants (he has a separate Instagram account dedicated to them), and for the first time in a long time is genuinely excited about visiting his family in New Hampshire. Why? Because he’s finally bringing home a boyfriend—a doctor no less (“What do I have to do to get cardiac arrested?” swoons one of Peter’s colleagues when the doctor makes his entrance to a plaid-themed Christmas party). But marriage to the doctor is out of the question, especially once Peter learns the doctor is already married. To a woman. Now Peter will have to return home single once again, and after he’s hinted to his family that he’s bringing back a “surprise.”

Instead, Peter convinces his roommate Nick (Philemon Chambers) to come home with him and pretend to be his new beau. Nick is understandably reluctant, first claiming he’s looking forward to having a Christmas staycation, then saying he doesn’t want to dip into his savings to buy a plane ticket (both valid reasons). Peter counters with rapid exposition: he doesn’t want Nick to be alone with his memories of his recently deceased mother, and as for Nick’s finances, he has the money he got from publishing a children’s book about his dog, Emmett. “Now you have all this money in the bank that you’re saving for a rainy day. And look—” Nick gestures at his own anguished visage—“it’s pouring.”

Philemon Chambers mimics my reaction to Single All
the Way’s dialog.

Movie premise established, Peter and Nick head to New Hampshire, where they’re greeted by Peter’s mom Carole (Najimy, doing her best with what’s she’s given), who not only insists on being called Christmas Carole for the month of December but also occupies herself making signs with cute/inspiring sayings, the kind that are derided in Progressive commercials.

Kathy Najimy’s face hidden to protect her dignity.

Before Peter can spring the news that he and Nick are a (pretend) couple, Carole (I refuse to call her Christmas Carole, and Netflix can’t do shit about it) springs a surprise of her own. It turns out her spin class instructor James is gay and single, so she has set the two up on a blind date! Peter is understandably horrified, but that’s before he meets James, who is played by Luke Macfarlane.

“I don’t care if my mom is standing there, I will suck your cock
right now!”

But while Peter is rapidly warming up to being a real boyfriend to James, his teenaged nieces (Madison Brydges and Alexandra Beaton, their performances actually more palatable than I expected them to be) think he and Nick are a better match. Peter’s dad (Barry Bostwick) would also like Nick as a son-in-law, though I suspected he might prefer keeping Peter’s hot roommate to himself. Seriously, I think Peter’s dad wants to fuck Nick, though I may be reading too much into Dad’s cajoling Nick to go down into the basement with him to fix a pipe.

OK, he meant that literally, but I still felt the heat
between these two.

The nieces—with the help of their parents (Schitt’s Creek’s Jennifer Robertson and Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles) and, of course, Grandpa—make it their mission to gently sabotage Peter’s relationship with James. They needn’t bother, as Peter seems to be doing a good job of auto-cockblocking, fending off James’ invitations to go back to his place because of lame plot contrivances. 

Regretfully, Single All the Way doesn’t take this opportunity to
make a facial joke.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot involving a Christmas pageant written and directed by Aunt Sandy (Coolidge), an actress whose career high was being Ellen Greene’s understudy in Little Shop of Horrors. It’s this pageant, weirdly, that bridges the dueling efforts to meddle in Peter’s love life, shoveling the snow off the movie’s path as it slides toward a predictably happy ending.

I spent the first thirty minutes of Single All the Way groaning and rolling my eyes at the obvious jokes (old people struggling with their smartphones; referring to HGTV as the “Homosexual Gay” network; “Christmas Carole”), but the movie eventually won me over as it went along. 

The moment I was won over.

The movie is basically a feature-length syndicated sit-com, and most of the performances are pitched accordingly, meaning most of the cast displays Kelly-and-Ryan-on-meth levels of enthusiasm, though a few (Chambers, Macfarlane, Bostwick) favor of a more grounded approach. Coolidge, as always, is in a class by herself, but her scene-stealing potential is squandered by a script that is too beholden to a TV-PG rating, reducing her Aunt Sandy to little more than a sight gag.

And Bette Midler impersonator.

Netflix gets points for casting gay actors (all three male leads are out IRL), as well as presenting interracial dating as the non-issue it should be. Had it remained a gay version of a Christmas fake engagement movie (and, goddamn, are there a lot of them), Single All the Way might have held its own. But it more closely resembles Lifetime’s The Christmas Setup, and it suffers from the comparison, failing to have half the charm of that movie. While Single All the Way is a pretty good approximation of a Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie, considering all the holiday movies those two channels churn out one would think Netflix would want to do something different to distinguish itself. Oh, well. At least we can watch it with our parents without fear of any uncomfortable conversations.

“What is felching?”

Straight Christmas Cynicism

After watching Single All the Way, I immediately wanted to watch something cynical to cut the sweetness, so I watched Zach Clark’s 2013 black comedy WHITE REINDEER. 

Single All the Way also gave me a strong desire to subscribe
to Noir Male, but I guess that’s not Christmas-y
enough for this post.

Jeff gives Suzanne an excuse to buy Hawaiian
Christmas CDs.

Washington, D.C.-area real estate agent Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) loves Christmas in a way only a woman with the middle name Noel can. And at the start of White Reindeer, Suzanne’s Christmas is set to be an especially merry one: she sells a house in her neighborhood to a charming young couple, George and Patti (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop), then, after a pre-dinner fuck, her TV weatherman husband Jeff (Nathan Williams) surprises Suzanne with the news that he got a job at a station in Hawaii.

But Suzanne’s dreams of a holiday luau end abruptly when she returns home from Christmas shopping to discover her home ransacked and her husband’s brains splattered across the floor. She’s still in the early stages of grief when one of her husband’s colleagues, wracked with guilt, reveals that Jeff was having an affair with a stripper named Autumn, who worked at a club near the TV station.

Autumn meets her lover’s widow.

Suzanne goes to the club confront Autumn (Laura Lemar-Goldsboro in her only film role), except their interaction isn’t confrontational. Suzanne is more curious about the other woman than angry with her. Suzanne is quickly bonds with Jeff’s lover, joining her and the other strippers for coke-fueled nights clubbing and going on shoplifting sprees at Macy’s during the day. They even get close enough for Autumn to share her real name: “Autumn is my stripper name. My real name is Fantasia.”

The high holidays.

Partying with strippers isn’t Suzanne’s only diversion from her grief. She spends thousands of dollars shopping online. She also angles for an invite to George and Patti’s housewarming party and attends even after she learns it’s not your typical holiday soiree.

Unless you’re Thomas Middleditch.

Though she’s game, sex with strangers isn’t as much fun as Suzanne hoped it would be. I’ve never been to a swingers’ party, but I suspect White Reindeer’s portrayal, which includes guests standing naked around the kitchen discussing one of their children’s struggles with little league, is closer to the unsexy reality.

The party always ends up in the kitchen.

But getting pounded by George while blowing a roly-poly guy with erection issues isn’t Suzanne’s rock bottom. No, what sends Suzanne crashing back to earth is discovering her credit cards are maxed out from her indiscriminate spending.

Though a few other things happen on the way down.

Hollyman is perfect as Suzanne, portraying her character with the right mix of optimism, despair and cluelessness one would expect from an upper-middle class white woman whose world is crashing down around her. Likewise, Lemar-Goldsboro’s Autumn/Fantasia is quietly tough, a woman who has dealt with enough shit by her early twenties that she’s unfazed by whatever shitstorm comes her way. The two actresses play well off each other, both deadpan but far from wooden. 

Suzanne is determined to have the best Christmas
money can buy.

White Reindeer is, as far as I’m concerned, a holiday classic. It fits neatly in the empty space left when I had to banish The Ref to the same purgatory where all the other Kevin Spacey movies I’ve enjoyed now reside. White Reindeer is a bit rough around the edges due to its limited budget, and some of its humor can be a bit cringey (Suzanne to Autumn/Fantasia’s mother: “Oh, you look pretty healthy for somebody on disability”), as well as kind of juvenile (Suzanne sniffing her own fart), but it always had me laughing. Given the past couple of years, I found it much easier to relate to Suzanne processing her grief in unhealthy ways than Peter’s deciding which hot man he wanted to be his boyfriend. I’m all for holiday escapism, but maybe next year Netflix could give us something we could watch with Family instead of with our families.

Short Takes: 'The Hawk and the Dove' (1981) ★★ 1/2

If you like looking at teenaged titties and listening to Neil Diamond, this is the movie for you!

The Hawk and the Dove (or Il falco e la colomba) is a romantic melodrama starring Fabio Testi as Michel, a low-level politician who, after being attacked by protestors, is tended to by Viva (Lara Wendel), a beautiful young model. Their interaction is brief, but since Viva’s young (very young, actually, but we’ll get to that later) and hot, Michel is immediately transfixed. He later encounters her in a restaurant (cue Neil Diamond’s “September Morn”) but is cockblocked by her sleazy boyfriend (Cannibal Ferox’s Danilo Mattei). Of course, Michel is married, but he’s not going to let that stand in his way. Besides, his wife Rita (Simonetta Stefanelli), the daughter of a prominent senator, is an emasculating bitch, so who can blame him for pursuing a side piece? The pair finally hookup (reprise “September Morn”), only for Michel’s fantasy of Viva to be shattered when he discovers she’s a heroin addict.

There is only one thing Michel can do: save Viva from herself. He checks her into rehab, and after her treatment Michel leaves his wife and the pair move in together. But they’re not even settled into their happily ever after (“September morn…we danced until the night became a brand new day…”) before Viva’s sleazy ex-boyfriend/dealer pays a visit, sending Viva and the movie into a rapid downward spiral.

The Hawk and the Dove is written and directed by Fabrizio Lori, and while he does fine in both of those roles, the movie never really rises above being just OK. Everything seems just a little forced, especially when the drama is cranked up to 11 for the depressing finale. It’s yet another movie that’s aimed for a female audience yet filmed for the male gaze (and definitely not male gays). Wendel’s body is showcased prominently in almost every scene she’s in. Even when she’s clothed her breasts are barely covered. Which, hey, I get it, she’s beautiful. She was also only 15 when she made this movie, and a body double wasn’t used for the nude scenes. I know, I know—it was a different time, and Europeans aren’t as stodgy as Americans when it comes to nudity. Still, unless you’re Josh Duggar or Jared Fogle, it’s hard not to feel a little icky watching a nude 15-year-old astride a costar 25 years her senior.

The movie’s also not helped by its English dubbing, which undermines all the actors involved (Wendel has a big dramatic breakdown scene that’s rendered laughable by the voice actor’s let’s-get-this-over-with line reading). I know it’s pointless to bitch about the dubbing since practically all Italian movies at this time were dubbed, but at least when dubbed in Italian the performances sound more authentic.

The Hawk and the Dove is a mildly interesting melodrama, but one you’re likely to forget a day or two after seeing it. Neil Diamond’s “September Morn,” however, will be stuck in your head for-fucking-ever!