The only problem with this movie was that I saw the ending coming a mile away. I like the Tubi originals, they are reasonably well acted and the film production is always good. The stories are middle of the road, not too violent and not a lot of nudity. Think of it like Lifetime movies, which is sometimes a nice break from torture porn. This movie is interesting enough with a couple of twists that I saw coming, including the ending. The only problem is that a few scenes are not very realistic and really would not fly in the real world. But to be fair, this is a park-your-brain-at-the-door kind of movie and not to be taken seriously. If you want a bit of light entertainment, you could do worse than this.
7 Reviews
My wife will kill me
BandSAboutMovies9 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Directed by Max McGuire (who like any director of the streaming era has a split between horror and holiday movies in his resume) and written by Ellen Huggins (The Ex Obsession), this is the story of Kate Kelsey (Nola Martin) whose husband Matt (Liam Toobin) is killed and because she has a popular vlog - A Good Wife's Guide to Murder - she becomes the prime suspect that the police are investigating. After all, they owned a restaurant called Mendaville together, he may have been having an affair and, yes, every episode of her show she breaks down her ten rules for killing your husband and getting away with it.
Adding to the conflict is the fact that Lenore (Tenille Read), the wife of investigating detective Peter Thompson (R Austin Ball), is more than just best friends with the Kelseys. She might have been getting even closer to Matt than she's letting on.
Matt was getting around, also sleeping with an employee named Lisa (Zenna Davis-Jones) who is killed moments after that secret is let out. Can Kate and her assistant Brit (Bukola Ayoka) figure out who did it? And was it someone close to her, like Brit? Or her former best friend who had a whole trunk of sex toys that she was using with her husband? What about her combination lawyer and PR guy who was bullied by her husband in high school?
Or is it...someone else?
Of all the recent Tubi movies, I think this is one of the better ones I've seen. I loved how it played with the conventions of true crime. Also: I live with someone who watched Forensic Files on an endless 24 hour repeating cavalcade of dead husbands, so I fully know there is no way I will survive any of this. So I relate as I laugh and enjoy what I watched.
Adding to the conflict is the fact that Lenore (Tenille Read), the wife of investigating detective Peter Thompson (R Austin Ball), is more than just best friends with the Kelseys. She might have been getting even closer to Matt than she's letting on.
Matt was getting around, also sleeping with an employee named Lisa (Zenna Davis-Jones) who is killed moments after that secret is let out. Can Kate and her assistant Brit (Bukola Ayoka) figure out who did it? And was it someone close to her, like Brit? Or her former best friend who had a whole trunk of sex toys that she was using with her husband? What about her combination lawyer and PR guy who was bullied by her husband in high school?
Or is it...someone else?
Of all the recent Tubi movies, I think this is one of the better ones I've seen. I loved how it played with the conventions of true crime. Also: I live with someone who watched Forensic Files on an endless 24 hour repeating cavalcade of dead husbands, so I fully know there is no way I will survive any of this. So I relate as I laugh and enjoy what I watched.
Formulaic but enjoyable
coltras3513 June 2023
Spousal murder expert Kate (Nola Martin) is happily married to her husband, Matt (Liam Tobin). After a promotional interview, Kate is shocked to return home to find Matt dead. She hysterically calls the police, which soon proves a hasty decision: Due to her fame as an expert on spousal murder, Kate is the prime suspect and arrested for Matt's murder!
Facing the possibility of life in prison, Kate decides to put her investigation skills to the test to find out who really murdered her husband and why they're trying to frame her.
A typical lifetime/Hallmark thriller with seemingly squeaky clean characters and their perfect lives turned up side down, well, at least for Kate, the protagonist, who finds her husband dead. She becomes suspect number one. And predictably looks for the real killer and secrets pop out. It's formulaic but enjoyable nevertheless, even though it sort of ran of steam towards the end.
Facing the possibility of life in prison, Kate decides to put her investigation skills to the test to find out who really murdered her husband and why they're trying to frame her.
A typical lifetime/Hallmark thriller with seemingly squeaky clean characters and their perfect lives turned up side down, well, at least for Kate, the protagonist, who finds her husband dead. She becomes suspect number one. And predictably looks for the real killer and secrets pop out. It's formulaic but enjoyable nevertheless, even though it sort of ran of steam towards the end.
Good Wife? Bad Movie.
Jblum513 January 2023
"Good Wife's Guide to Murder" follows Lenore, a podcaster who specializes in wives killing their husbands and teaches people how they can get away with it. One day she finds her husband dead and she naturally becomes the prime suspect.
Being a Tubi original , I naturally had very low expectations for this film. The thing was, despite some cringy dialogue, this film did have some things going for it. Most performances were decent for this type of thing. Shaun Benson stood out as the cop investigating the murder.
Things really fall apart after the initial set up. First-her lawyer and her agent are the same person which I think happened because they couldn't afford another actor. The plot conveniences drive the entire story forward, there are so many tired cliches scattered throughout it will make your head spin. You have your standard crosses, double crosses and twists but none of them felt earned or even made sense based on the characterization they had set up. I also found the ending to be extremely obvious and would imagine most people will as well. It wasn't even fun to play along and figure it out because so much of it felt so random.
Overall I think the writer completely missed on what makes these movies fun for people. While some performances are fun in their own way, terrible dialogue, plot devices and originality make this movie a hard skip.
Being a Tubi original , I naturally had very low expectations for this film. The thing was, despite some cringy dialogue, this film did have some things going for it. Most performances were decent for this type of thing. Shaun Benson stood out as the cop investigating the murder.
Things really fall apart after the initial set up. First-her lawyer and her agent are the same person which I think happened because they couldn't afford another actor. The plot conveniences drive the entire story forward, there are so many tired cliches scattered throughout it will make your head spin. You have your standard crosses, double crosses and twists but none of them felt earned or even made sense based on the characterization they had set up. I also found the ending to be extremely obvious and would imagine most people will as well. It wasn't even fun to play along and figure it out because so much of it felt so random.
Overall I think the writer completely missed on what makes these movies fun for people. While some performances are fun in their own way, terrible dialogue, plot devices and originality make this movie a hard skip.
Thriller Lite
lavatch15 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
It is easy to tell the difference between a Coke and a Diet Coke, just as it is easy to tell the difference between a Bud and a Bud Lite. In the case of this movie, it would best be described as Thriller Lite.
A shortcoming of the film was that literally any one of the characters could be the murderer of Matt, the husband of podcaster Kate. Her popular program entitled "A Good Wife's Guide to Murder" resulted in her being the primary suspect when her husband died. There followed a patchwork of clues that led nowhere until the secret was revealed in the denouement.
Another problem was that Matt seemed like a very decent guy in the early scenes. But after his demise, nearly all of the characters had something derogatory to say about poor Matt.
The secondary roles did not seem very well developed. They included two detectives, one of which was the best friend of Kate and a suspect herself. The result was a shallow narrative pattern and a set of cardboard characters. The film seemed so predictable and light-hearted that the only possible outcome for this experience was a tall glass of Thriller Lite.
A shortcoming of the film was that literally any one of the characters could be the murderer of Matt, the husband of podcaster Kate. Her popular program entitled "A Good Wife's Guide to Murder" resulted in her being the primary suspect when her husband died. There followed a patchwork of clues that led nowhere until the secret was revealed in the denouement.
Another problem was that Matt seemed like a very decent guy in the early scenes. But after his demise, nearly all of the characters had something derogatory to say about poor Matt.
The secondary roles did not seem very well developed. They included two detectives, one of which was the best friend of Kate and a suspect herself. The result was a shallow narrative pattern and a set of cardboard characters. The film seemed so predictable and light-hearted that the only possible outcome for this experience was a tall glass of Thriller Lite.
Just as cheesy as Lifetime
sfalodge27 February 2023
Bland and vanilla characters that are very predictable with meh acting. Characters are one dimensional, definitely didn't feel invested in any part of this very mediocre movie. I think the worst offender is the male detective - I hated his intentional pauses. His acting is horrible. The storyline is unimpressive. Feels like Lifetime movie - hard to believe I used to think they were entertaining. Save your time and skip it. One hour and a half hours of life I cannot get back. And why does this review need to be so long. I really don't think the movie deserves to have six hundred characters written about it.
Where have I seen this before?
rdfranciscritic10 February 2023
Yes, the FOX Network-owned Tubi-verse of the new, Smart TV streaming tundras does remind of the '90s Lifetime-verse of cable television. For each share a production common denominator: MarVista Entertainment, a shingle that produces effective, budget-conscience made-for-TV and direct-to-SVOD content for ION, The Disney Channel, and The Hallmark Channel.
So, as with those cable films of Hallmark and Lifetime old, the MarVista narrative model for Tubi -- which began in May 2022 when FOX purchased MarVista to align with Tubi, which FOX purchased back in April 2020 -- are analogous. The films -- when not utilizing the "ripped from the headlines" narrative (December 2022's pretty fine Prisoner of Love) -- are knockoffs of popular theatrical films, e.g., the Sandra Bullock-starring While You Were Sleeping (1995) becomes Hallmark's (one of their better) X-Mas offerings, A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013), while Paramount's The Prince and Me (2004) becomes the fun, Fred Olen Ray-directed, A Christmas Princess (2019).
In Good Wife's Guide to Murder our narrative model is the superior Basic Instinct (1992), as that film's Catherine Tramell, who writes best-selling, erotic crime novels, becomes the prime suspect in her lover's murder (with an exciting, ice-picked eyeball rage killing; here, we get PG'd wideshots of handheld weights and 2x4s to the skull).
At least Cathrine Tramell had a Mary Higgins Clark-successful career to justify the wealth on screen. In the MarVista-verse: we are just down the street from Ross and Rachel and Jerry and Elaine: a tele-verse where you get amazing jobs with no training and amazing Manhattan Island homesteads beyond your meager, coffee house existence (and no journalism degrees required).
Here, our Rachel Green-damsel-in-distress is Kate Kelsey (Nola Martin). Our "Ross Geller" is Matt (Liam Toobin). Together, they live a Nantucket-styled amazing, five-star life by way of Kate's vlogging and Matt's backyard, barn-based craft brewing. Oh, and on top of the amazing Frank Lloyd Wright-abode: they own an amazing restaurant (floundering in backbiting deceit amid its red-herring partners).
"You're the reason I got into journalism!" gushes one of Kate's fishy fans.
Yeah, this is a film where vlogging from a home office (read: spare bedroom) passes as "hard journalism" that, apparently, oh, never mind. . . . As with Ross and Rachel, or Monica and Chandler for that matter, I've already lost any sympathies for these disconnected, spoiled folks with "careers" that don't jive with their lifestyle.
Anyway, the vlog that seems to have captured the digital-cultural zeitgeist (on equal with the #1 rated "Joe Rogan Experience") is Kate's "Good Wife's Guide to Murder" podcast. Kate's low-rent Nancy Grace pontificates on spouse-related true crime stories, advising you, the cheated-on and abused wives of America: learn from the mistakes of those other cheated-on and abused wives who got caught.
Yeah, you guessed it: everyone one with a "Y" chromosome "is a pig," but the females of the species with one more "X" in the pool -- the ones who have sexual kinks and swing the blunt force trauma objects, mind you -- are cool. For they are women: hear them roar.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's husband turns up dead.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate -- who is so unlikable, she deserves to be framed -- is "innocent."
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate is the "prime suspect," yet allowed to Scoobie-Doo her husband's murder, as she tramples crime scenes and evidence in a world where there's no law regarding interfering with a police investigation.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's next door BBF (Tennell Read) is the lead detective on the case. Thus, Kate gets the 'ol "I'm sorry you're going through this" hug and coffee talk interrogations instead of the clink of the cuffs for obstruction. Yeah, these Canadian lassies still got to stick together in a Lifetime 2.0 world.
Yeah, you guessed it: I liked this latest MarVista-Tubi production.
It hits all the unlikable-to-dumb characters notes along with the implausible and convenient film noir cues of yore. All of the Italian-bred, '70s gialli components I cherish -- complete with the herrings of red having a little black leather sex kink with a too-close-to-home affair on the side -- are in the frames. Perhaps if this noired from the troubled detective's perspective instead of the spoiled vlogger and showed a little ball gagging. Oh, never mind.
This is a Tubi-cum-Lifetime flick with an 80-minute run time, after all, so check your hopes for some Maria Bava, Jess Franco, and Jean Rollin-styled sleaze and gore at the door and you'll enjoy the noir. (Oh, what Dario Argento could do with vlogs, twitter feeds, hacked tech, and leaked photos: that would be an amazing movie.)
Yeah, you've guessed it: you've Smart TV-streamed worse.
Yeah, you've guessed it: you've also streamed better.
So, as with those cable films of Hallmark and Lifetime old, the MarVista narrative model for Tubi -- which began in May 2022 when FOX purchased MarVista to align with Tubi, which FOX purchased back in April 2020 -- are analogous. The films -- when not utilizing the "ripped from the headlines" narrative (December 2022's pretty fine Prisoner of Love) -- are knockoffs of popular theatrical films, e.g., the Sandra Bullock-starring While You Were Sleeping (1995) becomes Hallmark's (one of their better) X-Mas offerings, A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013), while Paramount's The Prince and Me (2004) becomes the fun, Fred Olen Ray-directed, A Christmas Princess (2019).
In Good Wife's Guide to Murder our narrative model is the superior Basic Instinct (1992), as that film's Catherine Tramell, who writes best-selling, erotic crime novels, becomes the prime suspect in her lover's murder (with an exciting, ice-picked eyeball rage killing; here, we get PG'd wideshots of handheld weights and 2x4s to the skull).
At least Cathrine Tramell had a Mary Higgins Clark-successful career to justify the wealth on screen. In the MarVista-verse: we are just down the street from Ross and Rachel and Jerry and Elaine: a tele-verse where you get amazing jobs with no training and amazing Manhattan Island homesteads beyond your meager, coffee house existence (and no journalism degrees required).
Here, our Rachel Green-damsel-in-distress is Kate Kelsey (Nola Martin). Our "Ross Geller" is Matt (Liam Toobin). Together, they live a Nantucket-styled amazing, five-star life by way of Kate's vlogging and Matt's backyard, barn-based craft brewing. Oh, and on top of the amazing Frank Lloyd Wright-abode: they own an amazing restaurant (floundering in backbiting deceit amid its red-herring partners).
"You're the reason I got into journalism!" gushes one of Kate's fishy fans.
Yeah, this is a film where vlogging from a home office (read: spare bedroom) passes as "hard journalism" that, apparently, oh, never mind. . . . As with Ross and Rachel, or Monica and Chandler for that matter, I've already lost any sympathies for these disconnected, spoiled folks with "careers" that don't jive with their lifestyle.
Anyway, the vlog that seems to have captured the digital-cultural zeitgeist (on equal with the #1 rated "Joe Rogan Experience") is Kate's "Good Wife's Guide to Murder" podcast. Kate's low-rent Nancy Grace pontificates on spouse-related true crime stories, advising you, the cheated-on and abused wives of America: learn from the mistakes of those other cheated-on and abused wives who got caught.
Yeah, you guessed it: everyone one with a "Y" chromosome "is a pig," but the females of the species with one more "X" in the pool -- the ones who have sexual kinks and swing the blunt force trauma objects, mind you -- are cool. For they are women: hear them roar.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's husband turns up dead.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate -- who is so unlikable, she deserves to be framed -- is "innocent."
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate is the "prime suspect," yet allowed to Scoobie-Doo her husband's murder, as she tramples crime scenes and evidence in a world where there's no law regarding interfering with a police investigation.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's next door BBF (Tennell Read) is the lead detective on the case. Thus, Kate gets the 'ol "I'm sorry you're going through this" hug and coffee talk interrogations instead of the clink of the cuffs for obstruction. Yeah, these Canadian lassies still got to stick together in a Lifetime 2.0 world.
Yeah, you guessed it: I liked this latest MarVista-Tubi production.
It hits all the unlikable-to-dumb characters notes along with the implausible and convenient film noir cues of yore. All of the Italian-bred, '70s gialli components I cherish -- complete with the herrings of red having a little black leather sex kink with a too-close-to-home affair on the side -- are in the frames. Perhaps if this noired from the troubled detective's perspective instead of the spoiled vlogger and showed a little ball gagging. Oh, never mind.
This is a Tubi-cum-Lifetime flick with an 80-minute run time, after all, so check your hopes for some Maria Bava, Jess Franco, and Jean Rollin-styled sleaze and gore at the door and you'll enjoy the noir. (Oh, what Dario Argento could do with vlogs, twitter feeds, hacked tech, and leaked photos: that would be an amazing movie.)
Yeah, you've guessed it: you've Smart TV-streamed worse.
Yeah, you've guessed it: you've also streamed better.
See also
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