The Last Trimester (2007) starring Chandra West, Matthew Harrison, Jim Thorburn, Lara Gilchrist, Laura Mennell, Gary Hetherington, Julia Arkos directed by Mark Cole Movie Review

The Last Trimester (2007)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Chandra West and Jim Thorburn in The Last Trimester (2007)

Horrifically Hormonal

Forget for a moment that "The Last Trimester" is a TV movie and has various TV movie flaws such as shaky acting and weak characters and what you have is an interesting movie. I say interesting because this is a movie which throws more twists and red herrings at you than most mainstream movies and whilst in the midst of this sea of possibilities you can work out where it is going it does try hard to keep you interested. So whilst things start as a married couple desperate to try and adopt the baby along the way we get deception, issues of trust, a psychotic mother, a mysterious cop, a possessive father-in-law and a few more things which build to create a guessing game.

Eric (Jim Thorburn) and Tracy Smythe (Chandra West - I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) are desperate for a child and having tried in vitro with no success have settled on adopting. Except their first attempt at adopting ends in heart break with the mother of the baby having lied about being married causes them to have to hand it back. But Eric comes home one day and has found a solution, Gabrielle (Lara Gilchrist), the niece of a woman he works with, has got herself pregnant and being single doesn't want the child and is willing to let Eric and Tracy adopt. It seems such a perfect deal, but things turn sour and become a real nightmare for Tracy & Eric especially when Tracy asks Gabrielle to move in.

Lara Gilchrist as Gabby in The Last Trimester (2007)

"The Last Trimester" is a movie which is constantly evolving, throwing one twist after another into the works to try and keep you guessing. As such we have Tracy and Eric who are desperate for a child and after one failed adoption believe in Gabrielle they have found the perfect solution, single pregnant woman who doesn't want the baby she is carrying. We get drama as Tracy and Eric have had a bad experience with adoption before and Eric does not want his rich father-in-law involved. Pretty straight forwards so far, but then we get the first of many twists as Gabrielle moves in With Tracy & Eric and appears to be a bit of a psycho who claims that not only is Eric the babies real father but also destroying the photos of him with Tracy. It starts to feel a bit like "Single White Female" with the scary woman trying to get what someone else has.

The thing is it doesn't stop there and basically we get more various twists which make us basically question everyone's motives especially when something happens to Gabrielle. We wonder whether Tracy's father who has a dislike for Eric has tried to cause trouble, we wonder whether Eric is really the father and Gabby isn't lying, we also wonder about Nick a friendly policeman who shows up after Tracy backs into his car. And slowly the truth is revealed as it tries to lead us one way then another in this guessing game of relationships, because that is basically what the movie is about, before leading us to a typically dramatic ending. The trouble is that it feels like there is too many twists and even during the finale it has to throw another one at us making it feel very convoluted. But what is worse is that you can actually guess who the bad character really is in this web of twists and so all the red herrings ends up being barely a minor distraction.

There are other issues which also spoil "The Last Trimester" and sadly these are issues which go hand in hand with it being a TV movie. Characters are flat, actors over act and as for the central pairing of Tracy & Eric well even when we witness the early failed adoption attempt you don't really take them to your heart to really care what happens to them. It ends up that Lara Gilchrist as Gabrielle is the most entertaining and that is down to the entertainment of watching her turn psycho, coming on to Eric, destroying photos and being basically evil.

What this all boils down to is that "The Last Trimester" is an interesting movie because it does throw a lot of twists and red herrings at you to make quite a guessing game even if the outcome is quite inevitable. But it is a TV movie and various flaws from weak characters to over acting does spoil things and turns it into just an average daytime thriller.


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