102 - A Deadly Adoption

    A couple bring a pregnant lady into their household, with plans to adopt her child.  Things get difficult as the woman has other motives.
    This is a Lifetime movie.  I’ve never watched a complete Lifetime movie, I’ve only seen tiny bits in passing.  But I’m well aware of what type of movie they are.  They’re the successor to the after-school specials and dramatic movie-of-the-week productions.  That said, there’s a lower threshold for quality than most productions.  You never watch these for the plotting, the script, the acting, or the direction.  Wow, that makes them sound terrible.  You watch them because they’re engrossing in the same way that soap operas are.  This has the same flavor.
    The remarkable thing about this movie is that it functions as a completely serious Lifetime movie.  It hits all the appropriate beats, and it never breaks out of that mold.  But at the same time, it functions as a pitch-perfect parody of Lifetime movies.  It’s made a little more obvious by Will Ferrell’s completely straight performance.
    The story itself is ridiculous.  Will Ferrell plays a writer.  He seems to be a financial advice writer.  And somehow, this makes him desirable to women.  When he goes on his book tours (in flashbacks) he drinks and makes out with loose women.  His agent refers to him having “groupies.”
    Somehow, the family agrees to take in this pregnant woman without much proof that she’s actually pregnant.  I would expect some sort of hospital records would be needed - like a doctor’s report saying that she’s in a healthy pregnancy.
    The trauma that the family is working through seems ludicrous as well.  He’s afraid of water because his wife broke a railing and fell into water, somehow resulting in her being unable to have children again.  Plus, she miscarries.  This seems like a stretch, especially since it didn’t seem that serious an accident.
    There are a bunch of side plots, none of which amount to being that important.  The wife has an organic food business, but she never seems to do anything other than sell the food.  Where does she get it from?  There’s no garden or anything.  She has a tacky gay friend/employee, who only exists to give the movie a body count.  Will Ferrell is a recovering alcoholic, which is admirable, but it would help if we saw him actually be a bad person at the beginning, then improve.  Instead, we only get a hint that he was a bad person during a flashback.
    Is it good?  Not really.  But it is what it is.  It’s very watchable, somehow.