My Neighbor's Secret (TV Movie 2009)

My Neighbor’s Secret: Directed by Leslie Hope. With Nicholas Brendon, Chandra West, Vincent Ventresca, Dakota Goyo. A husband and wife begin to suspect that their newly widowed neighbor may have a serious dark side. Starring Nicholas Brendon.

“This is not Citizen Kane. This is a Lifetime Movie. The writing is geared toward the sensibilities of women of a certain age and station in life. If you canu0026#39;t accept the paradigm for what it is, you wonu0026#39;t get far with this one.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat being said, this movie entertained the hell out of me.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBrent, played with brilliant, unselfconscious sociopathy by Nicholas Brendon, is both charming and menacing by turns as the the man obsessed. In a perfect marriage of script and actor, there are moments of both almost comical self-awareness as he narrates his intrusion into his neighboru0026#39;s lives via spy cams.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eChandra West, as Casey, is extremely engaging and sympathetic and has a natural chemistry with Nicholas Brendon that added terrifically to both his characteru0026#39;s fantasy sequences and their more subtle interactions as well.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eVincent Ventresca as the husband, Jason, did a remarkable job balancing the colder aspects of his character with understated, but obvious love for his family, as well as a certain amount of personal charm which justified and bolstered his place in the filmu0026#39;s quasi-romantic triangle.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe supporting cast was delightfully earnest in their delivery, which is nothing especially new for the Lifetime network, but a wonderfully familiar convention all the same.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWithout giving too much away, it is worth noting that there were several well placed and surprising twists in the story which took it one step beyond the conventional movie-of-the- week storytelling.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn short, this was a great film, and well deserving of an evening in with an afghan and a box of girl scout cookies.”