The Other Wife (2016) Kimberley Hews, Tonya Kay, Christine Sclafani, Nick Principe, George Stumpf Movie Review

The Other Wife (2016)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Tonya Kay and Kimberley Hews in The Other Wife (2016)

Mother Duplicity

Kate (Kimberley Hews) believes her marriage to Billy (George Stumpf) is perfect, so it is a complete shock when the day after their home is burgled she returns home from a doctor's appointment to find Billy dead having killed himself. But the shocks keep on coming as following Billy's death Kate discovers that he not only had another wife called Deb (Tonya Kay - Creep Van) but she is pregnant with his child. But it seems Billy's deception didn't end there as the women discover Billy owed money to the mob and the mob plan to get the money back via a hitman who targets them both. Now these two must work together to discover where Billy hid the money and get the mob off their backs, but will it be as simple as that?

I can't remember where I saw it but I remember a movie reviewer once using the term "fascinatingly flawed" to refer to a movie and that phrase couldn't be more apt when talking about the Lifetime movie "The Other Wife". The flawed part is simple because Kate doesn't have a melt down after a run in with a burglar, finding her husband dead, supposedly having hung himself, learning she has no money, being told he hadn't paid taxes, was laundering money and then finding out he was married to another woman who is also pregnant. Come on that alone is enough to push you over the edge, throw in on top of that a mob hitman and I am sorry there is enough trouble here to really screw real people up but nope that wouldn't make for entertainment and so Kate is a lot tougher than your everyday woman, tougher than some of the women you find in Lifetime movies.

But as I said "The Other Wife" is fascinating, admittedly in a semi bad way, as you are not so much interested in what revelations are coming but how far fetched those revelations are going to be. So we have these women who should be at each other's throats joining forces to deal with an over cocky hitman. His cockiness leads to mistakes but then "The Other Wife" is another one of those movies where people do things they shouldn't, don't do the most logical of things and so on. For example at one point the hitman has Kate head to a storage unit to collect the money Billy owes. Now to me she is on her own whilst the hitman is holding Debs hostage in the car and whilst he made threats you would think call the cops, just call the cops for crying out loud. And of course she doesn't so it goes on and on.

But then "The Other Wife" seems to be so obvious, so stupid at times that you begin to second guess yourself as you question whether the people are who they say they are. For example is Deb really the other woman or is she in on something much bigger, maybe some sort of big hustle. To be honest I was actually clutching at straws at this point because there are so many flaws both little and large that you hope things will get really twisted to make it all the more entertaining.

What this all boils down to is that "The Other Wife" is one of those Lifetime movies which if you watch expecting realistic behaviour you are going to be left wanting. But if you are comfortable going with the flow and can enjoy some of the stuff which is high on being nonsense then maybe it will work for you.


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