His Double Life (2016 Lifetime)

His Double Life (2017 Lifetime)

Stars: Emmanuelle Vaugier, Brian Krause, Cristine Prosperi

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Synopsis (via Lifetime)

Inspired by true events. Five years after her husband was killed in a tragic car accident, Linda starts to rebuild her life and gets re-married, to her late husband’s business partner Greg. When her daughter Scarlett returns home from college, she notices her new stepfather is behaving oddly and suspects that he might be having an affair. She follows him and seems to confirm her suspicions when he meets up with another woman. Things get scarier, though, when a day later on the news, the same mysterious other woman is reported dead. Scarlett starts to wonder… who is this man living in their home?

Thoughts

Linda, who works in politics, calls her loving husband while he is driving. His breaks go out, and he crashes his car, He does not survive the accident.

Five years later, Linda and her daughter Scarlett are moving in with Greg. (A business partner of Linda’s decided husband.) Scarlett is in college and isn’t the biggest fan of Greg. He is imposing and forces Scarlett to accept him in his life by trying to be cool and with gifts, lots of gifts. In her new room, Scarlett notices a stuffed animal and laughs. “I’m not 12, you guys!” she protests. (That toy is probably a camera.)

Darcy is Scarlett’s BFF; she offers her friend advice about Greg. Maybe he isn’t that bad, and he is clearly putting in the effort to win her over. Darcy also tells her friend to date a cutie named August. Scarlett is still suspicious and sees Greg sneaking out in the middle of the night. She accesses this car’s GPS and takes a photo of the address and looks them up online. (Never mess with a tech-savvy teen.) She is convinced that Greg is cheating on her mother when he cancels “because of work.”

When Greg is in the shower, Scarlett installs a tracker app on his phone. He comes out in a towel and almost catches her. The next night he sneaks out, Scarlett trails him in her car by watching the tracker app. She follows him to a house where he meets another woman and closes the blinds. The next day she sees the woman on the news. Her body was found DEAD IN THE WOODS!!!! (To make things worse, she catches Greg cleaning his car in the middle of the night.)

Scarlett shares the news with her mom and Greg to look for a reaction. The new story develops, and Scarlett learns that the murdered woman was a Russian spy. This is when Scarlett starts noticing secret agent behavior and tells Darcy. Darcy makes fun of her friend and tells her to go to the FBI is she is so concerned or find proof. That proof comes quickly. Scarlett finds out that Greg’s backstory in a lie by looking into old transcripts from Harvard.

At dinner, Scarlett brings up the questionable past, and Greg has a whole story prepared. Linda is very sympathetic to her husband and upset that her daughter could be so rude. On their way out of the restaurant, someone calls Greg “Scott” and is insistent that he is someone else. Greg tells the man that he is mistaken. Later, he kills him.

Scarlett recruits her friend August to help her look into more things tech-wise. They find hidden messages on a flash drive, stored in an image file. Darcy also gets in on the action and finds out information about Greg too. She goes to the house and looks around. Little does she know Greg is inside watching her on surveillance cameras. He kills Darcy and throws her in the trunk of his car. (He death is staged as a car accident, with brake failure.)

The police arrive and want to speak with Scarlett about Darcy’s death. Scarlett was the last car recorded on Darcy’s cellphone. She asks the detective if she thinks it was murder. The detective says accidents happen.

I feel bad for Scarlett because she lives with someone she doesn’t trust, and her mother is not on her side. Linda needs to step it up. Scarlett keeps trying to talk to her mother, but Greg won’t leave them alone together. Scarlett is really starting to freak out. She goes home and breaks into a lockbox finding multiple passports and a background check that her father ran years ago. Scarlett now knows that Greg killed her father. Scarlett calls the FBI, and they tell her to bring the evidence to their office.

August and Scarlett round up the evidence, but they are too late. Greg has Linda ties up, and he gets August too. Greg pistol whips Scarlett and knocks her out cold. Linda asks Greg if he ever loved her, and he never did. Greg is about to download the codes for NASA or something, but August installed a virus and stops him.

Scarlett wakes up and fights Greg. He is a Russian spy, but somehow she takes him. He is about to stab her but is shot by Linda. Mother and daughter hug.

Six months later, Scarlett and Linda are moving out of their home. Scarlett goes back to college, and Linda has a political campaign to run. The movie ends with a warning that our husbands are probably Russian spies.

Side Note

Minority Report: August Detective, Security Guard, FBI agent

Inspired by true event here mean, there was a Russian who married an American one. Read more at Bustle.

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Overall rating

🔪🔪🔪 (3 Knives)

🍷🍷🍷 (3 glasses of wine required.)