'My Husband's Secret Twin' Review: A troubled twin with a psychotic past, need we say more!
Spoiler alert
Lifetime has a dozen films that are releasing exclusively for its television audience and one of them was 'My Husband's Secret Twin'. When you first hear the title of this film, it may get you all hyped up.
However, it is nowhere close to meeting expectations. The basal concept of twins switching places and dealing with an evil twin is overdone in films, but the way they are dealt with makes a difference.
A similar plotline was observed in Jake Gyllenhaal's movie 'Enemy'. However, it was suspenseful and did great at the box office.
Coming to 'My Husband's Secret Twin', the only thing that the film succeeds in portraying is the amazing chemistry between Melanie (Charlotte Graham) and Derrick (Rick Cosnett).
Their relationship is so pure and their little gestures of expressing love are beyond adorable. But even with a connection so strong, Derrick manages to hide his deepest and darkest secret from her.
A psychotic twin with issues from childhood shouldn't be something you keep a secret from your wife, even if it was to protect either of them.
It is not so hard to guess where the movie goes after this. With each scene randomly being thrown in your face, the suspense element goes missing in totality. Within the first 10 minutes of the film, we know that the twin, Alex, has evil intentions.
Derrick gets kidnapped from his car and is taken to a shady basement where he is locked down. It is then revealed that it is his evil twin, Alex, who did it. Alex makes Derrick watch everything that transpires after this through CCTV cameras.
Obviously, Derrick and Alex are identical twins and it is difficult to tell them apart. The only distinction is that Alex has a British accent while Derrick has an American one.
Alex is nothing like Derrick, but somehow, Melanie can't understand that. When she speaks to him, his pronunciations are different owing to the British touch.
She could have caught him right there before things escalate. Even with a clichéd plotline, it lacks any kind of action and fails to incite the thrill factor.
In fact, Netflix's 'Living With Yourself' has a similar storyline, but the way it is portrayed is revolutionary! There are different perspectives used to tell the same story and that makes it even more grippy.
Unfortunately for this film, nothing seems to be in place. The first scene itself is extremely melodramatic and confusing. An old woman gets strangled by masked robbers and there is no mention of this lady throughout the film. We are still wondering who that lady is and what her connection is to the movie.
The flashbacks and flashforwards are unclear and that makes it difficult to understand the trajectory of the film. For instance, there is a scene where a dead body is buried in the backyard, and nobody except Alex perhaps knows the person.
It seems like Alex was deeply traumatized by the fact that he never got adopted by anyone. He ends up on a killing spree to achieve some kind of satisfaction.
He was envious of Derrick because his life was perfect — career, love, and money. It can be safely said that he was obsessed with the superficial materials of life because he never had any of these. He was a convict and had even served jail time.
Alex had some weird fetishes— kidnapping his twin and swapping lives with him did not only mean that he would be clearing all the bank accounts but it also meant that he would be sleeping with Melanie.
In due course of the film, we see Alex in bed with Melanie, pretending to be Derrick. Although she is surprised by his new moves, it does not stop her from doubting him more.
The worst part is that Derrick is able to see everything happening inside the house, even in the bedroom. The film only goes downhill after this as there are lame plot twists.
The crowning point of this movie could have been better by making the brothers fight one on one, but we don't always get what we want, do we? The film teaches you what not to do when a psychotic person is holding you at gunpoint.
We get a climax we were not expecting and that makes it way too absurd for a supposed "thriller".
The final word would be that the movie was unnecessarily stretched towards the end and honestly, we could not wait for the film to end once and for all.