When Vows Break (2019 Lifetime)

When Vows Break (2019 Lifetime)

Cast: Christa B. Allen, Danielle C. Ryan, Jacob Young

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Synopsis (via Lifetime)

Fearing for her life, an engaged woman hits upon a plan to marry her volatile fiance but to escape his clutches during the honeymoon.

Thoughts

THe movie starts 32 miles west of Barbados. Tollan is frantically searching a boat in the middle of the ocean for his wife, Ella. He screams her name into the empty ocean and it echos as the title card pops on the screen. So far, I’m into this.

Cut to three days earlier, Ella is at a physic for her bachelorette party. The physic is a stereotypical Miss Cleo type of vibe. She tells Ella and her maid of honor that Ella’s death is connected with her soon to husband and he is a bad man. She gives Ella an amulet to protect her and wear it at all times. Tollan is parked across the street and sees the whole thing.

Once, Ella is home Tollan gives her the third degree. Ella lies to him and tells him they physic told her that they will live happily ever after. Then that kiss passionately, but Ella isn’t into it. (Don’t know why Tollan is hot AF.)

It is wedding day and Ella looks gorgeous. Her sister/maid of honor (Lydia) begs Ella to call off the wedding. She tells Ella that she is afraid for her and tells her that Tollan is a monster. Ella is calm and promises that she knows what she is doing. It will be better for everyone if she goes along with it for now, plus she has that amulet.

Lydia begins to worry when she hasn’t heard from Ella since after the wedding. They have a sister code. You disregard the first and last sentence and then use the first letter of every word. Lydia shows her husband an example that spells out H.(ows)E.(eryone)L.(oving)P(aradise), which her husband thinks is super cleaver. While she is showing him, Tollan calls and tells them that Ella is missing and the Barbados coast guard are looking for her body. Lydia and her husband fly down st St. James Parish the next morning.

In Barbados, actual POC’s with Barbadian accents, tell Lydia and her husband all the known evidence. Lydia blames Tollan and knows that he has something to do with it. The one strange thing to Lydia is that Ella’s phone is missing and the palm reader told them about “dark water”. She debates on if she should tell the police, I’d vote no on that one.

Tollan calls Lydia in the middle of the night while drinking whiskey. He tells her that they need to talk right away. Tollan tells them that he had nothing to do with Ella’s disappearance. He tells her that Ella went up on deck to get some air and went missing 15 mins later. (We get flashbacks to what happened.) Lydia can’t believe him and tells him he will go to prison. They all go back to the states.

Back home, Lydia hires Steve Urkel (who is a detective.) and he is on the case. She tells him about Ella being in an abusive relationship with Tollan. Steve Urkel tells her that he will check out Ella social media and she should file a missing persons report. Which Lydia does. (She is styled REALLY nicely in this movie, all of her outfits are major.) Turns out that Ella has a 1.2 million dollar life insurance, she took the policy out on herself and made Lydia the beneficiary.

In another flashback, Lydia remembers that Tollan bought Ella’s wedding dress for her. She thinks Tollan would pay anyone off to corroborate his story. Lydia isn’t waiting for Detective Steve Urkel to get information she starts finding clues herself. Lydia receives Ella’s amulet with a note that reads:

“Tolan killed his new bride Trine cloud recovery will prove it.” with a log in and password

Lydia goes to her husband and they look up the cloud recovery from Ella’s phone. (Seriously she is better than the police.) They see text that Ella tried to send but didn’t go through. They say “Help Tollan is trying to kill me.” Lydia’s husband isn’t concerned with any of that, he wants to know who send the letter?!?!

Detective Steve Urkel finds out that Tollan has been doing some creative banking in the Cayman and isn’t as innocent as her may, but kidding he doesn’t seem innocent at all. The insurance people are also onto Tollan and are very suspicious of him and Lydia. Tollan plays it cool under all this scrutiny.

Lydia goes to see Madame Diedre, who tells her that Ella is alive and well. Lydia is about to storm off when Ella comes from the back room. She is dressed like a stereotypical palm reader, just kidding she looks like herself. Ella apologizes for faking her death but explains that she needed to get away from Tollan before he could kill her, or have her killed.

Ella hired Madame Diedre’s cousin, who was the ship’s captain, she staged her disappearance and hid in a storage locker underdeck on the boar. The captain got her off the boat after the detectives investigated and send the letter. Ella stayed in barbados for two days and used a stolen passport to get back to America. Her plan is to move to Argentina.

Lydia calls off the detectives, because she doesn’t want them to know about Ella. Her husband is confused why Lydia would suddenly change her tune. She tells her husband that Tollan is dangerous and they need to do things on their own. Lydia does some thinking and realizes that Ella set up Tollan for murder. She tells Ella it is wrong and she will not be complacent in putting a man away in prison. She tells Ella she needs to think about it.

Tollan throws Ella a funeral/memorial, which is crashed by detectives with a warrant The detectives arrest Tollan after looking at his computer. Lydia is not holding up well because of all the guilt and secrets. She confesses everything to her husband, he is disgusted with his wife. He blames Ella for making this whole scheme up and tells her it is wrong. Lydia defends Ella’s vigilante justice by reminding her husband that Tollan is a wife beater. Lydia decides that she has to do what is right for her son and family.

When Lydia tells Ella, Ella is shocked that her sister won’t go along with her plan. Lydia gives Ella the death certificate and tells her good luck with everything.

Tollan is starting to catch on and notices money missing from his offshore accounts. He checks his security camera and sees Ella copying his passwords and transfering money. He confronts Lydia and asks her what the hell is going on. He also threatens her family, which you should not do to Lydia. Because, of course, she is going to tell her husband ALL about it. The husband wants to know id Lydia talled to Ella. Lydia says she doesn’t think she will ever talk to her again.

The husband calls Lydia to tell her that their son is missing. The female detective, detective Newmar, who has been working on getting Tollan charged with murder is now working on finding their son. Tollan picked up the kid and brought him to a secluded location. Lydia tells the detective everything and the detective puts out an amber alert, but is PISSED about the whole Ella being alive thing.

Tollan calls Lydia and tells her that he has her son and will give him to Lydia in exchange for Ella. He gives her two hours. The husband calls Detective Newmar and asks her to locate Ella, she tells them to come to her office. She calls detective Steve Urkel and puts him back on the case.

We get a flashback of a bunch of scenes we’ve scenes before, while Tollan sits with a gun. After he snaps out of it he calls for his private jet and then checks the security cameras at the house. A police officer is poking around he property. Tollan grabs a knife and follows the sheriff and stabs him and almost shoots him to death, but Ella hits him with a shovel.

Everyone is suddenly at this house. Lydia, her husband, Steve Urkel, lady detective, and even the maid! (just kidding.) Tollan takes Ella hostage at gunpoint and yells at Lydia. Ella speaks her secret sister language to Lydia and the cops know to shoot on three. They shoot Tollan and Ella. Tollan is arrested and Ella is fine.

Flash forward and the sisters are drinking lemonade. Ella apologizes for everything and Lydia forgives her. They agree that any new boyfriend gets Lydia’s stamp of approval. Hahahahaha.

Side Note

Minority Report: Madame Diedre & the boat captain. Steve Urkel, the maid, Detective Newmar, basically everyone who isn’t a lead.

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Overall rating

🔪🔪🔪 (3 Knives)

🍷🍷🍷 (3 glasses of wine required)