Vita strappata (1991) Online

Although it's impossible to know what went on in the mind of Audrey Marie Hilley as she poisoned those she loved, Judith Light is pretty good in this film. This is so obviously a television movie, since the editing looks like it was done with a meat cleaver, but there are some priceless moments in this film, chiefly among them when Marie, juggling three different identities, "dies" as Robbi and comes back as her platinum-haired twin sister Teri. Introducing herself to Robbi's co-workers is deliciously unbelievable as Teri waltzes into the employee break room and shakes hands with people she already knows. To think that the real Marie Hilley actually tried to pull this off, and successfully convinced a good number of people, is a testament to her charm. Light wisely steers clear of explaining Hilley, instead playing the character straight, letting the absurdity of the story maintain the mystery of Hilley. Not bad for a t.v. movie.

while this is not a masterpiece, as another reviewer mentioned, it is an interesting and realistic portrayal of true life sociopath Audrey Marie Hilley.

For some reason, when this film was first shown, there were segments which portrayed the poisoning of Marie's mother- and that she initially lived in a trailer. Her primary goal, no matter what, was to get out of that small town in Alabama.

The daughter is well played by Kelley Overbey. She is an unknowing victim. David Dukes is excellent as the Alabama prosecutor, who follows Hilley through her latest escapades. As one detective mentions, there is an increasing level of violence, starting small, with bouncing checks, to arson, to insurance fraud and eventually murder.

David Ogden Stiers portrays Hilley's final conquest; she manipulates him from Florida to New Hampshire- he will buy her anything she wants- that is all she needs to know. It is amazing to reflect on the number of people who were taken in by Hilley, her many false identities, and stories. When she returns as Terry, Robbi's "twin" sister- it is almost too much. Apparently Hilley really did do this, and with the exception of one co-worker, everyone believed her. The husband, as played by Ogden Stiers, seemed particularly dense.

There are some amusing scenes also, such as when Hilley teaches her daughter how to parallel park, by driving through (and over) the graves at the local cemetery. This story is all the more intriguing because it is based on truth, and apparently John Homan (Hilley's beleaguered husband) was also murdered in a bizarre robbery incident in 1989. Definitely worth watching. 9/10.

Surpassing all of the celluloid screen gems based on Stephen King's on-going premise that most of the horror in the world takes place in Maine ("as Maine goes so goes the nation...") is the fact that many non-fictionally based movies dealing with the sinister, seamy, and downright bizarre, are set in Maine's straight-laced neighboring state of New Hampshire. Add the 1991 made-for-tv film "Wife, Mother, Murderer" to the growing list of "farcical film noir" granite state fare. Twentieth-century Lucretia Borgia-esque family poisoner Audrey Hilley flees the clutches of Alabamian justice and seeks refuge in New Hampshire's hallowed hills (not to be confused with real-life characters Barney and Betty Hill, the subjects of an earlier made-for-tv movie, "The Ufo Incident" (1975),based on the first "documented" alien-abduction account involving a Portsmouth, New Hampshire couple "saucer-napped" during a vaction in New Hampshire's White Mountains in 1961).

Current info-merical actress Judith Light's stellar, soap opera-tinged performance relegates this flick to #1 amongst "Naughty New England Melodramas"! Thrill to the scenic beauty of charming Cheshire County (even though this was filmed in North Carolina where they have a more active film commission)! Such sumptuous cinema begs viewers to check out other New Hampshire-based nuggets, such as 1995's "To Die For", in which Nicole Kidman plays egotistical sociopath Suzanne Stone (based on New Hampshire's real-life Pamela Smart), in a sordid tale of a seductive tv weather commentator/high school instructor who orchestrates the murder-for-hire killing of her husband by her teenage, student lover; watch for a cameo role by author-turned-actress Joyce Maynard as Suzanne's lawyer. Maynard wrote the original novel from which the film was adapted and is the purported former lover of "Catcher In The Rye" author J.D. Salinger). Who could forget the 1962 Stanley Kubrick film "Lolita", in which middle-aged mentsch Humbert Humbert pursues the affections of a 14-year-old nymphet (played perfectly and purringly by Sue Lyon) amidst an array of oddball, small-town New Hampshire bizarros? Other neurotic New Hampshire-based nefariousness includes the films: "Murder In New Hampshire: The Pamela Wojas Smart Story" (1991), a quick, slick, made-for-tv instant recount (starring oscar-winner Helen Hunt) of the actual real-life inspiration of "To Die For"), "In The Mouth Of Madness" (John Carpenter's 1995 horror-ode to what happens to over-the-edge writers who seek solace in the granite state), "Peyton Place" (1957), the grandparent of all "sleazy soaps" (and yes, also set in New Hampshire), "The World According To Garp" (1982), and "The Hotel New Hampshire" (1984), screen adaptations of New Hampshire-born writer John Irving's homage to peaceful, wholesome New Hampshire piety and pragmatism. Even 1995's "Jumanji", a bland, spfx-befuddled Robin Williams flick concerning a young boy who acquires a mysterious board game and is trapped in an alternate dimension (a thinly-veiled, not-terribly-engaging horror story passing itself off as a big-budget Hollywood children's movie) is New Hampshire (and Cheshire County) based! All-in-all, "Wife, Mother, Murderer" is notable (aside from the competent job done by Judith Light) more for its addition to and epitomization of "New Hampshire Folklore Film Fodder", than for its recounting of a latter-day Lucretia! And yes, this reviewer is a native of and lives in Cheshire County, New Hampshire!

Generally when somebody screws up, they go through three sets of filters in the course of attempts at correction. The first order of social control is usually the family. When Dad spots a roach clip on his son's dresser, well, they sit down and have a good talk about it. Mom may ground her daughter for not doing the chores. The second order of control is the social network the screw-up belongs to -- the friends, the peers, the community. Friends try to talk sense to the guy. The community gossips about him (or her). Among the Old Order Amish, you get "shunned" if you don't straighten up and fly right. At West Point you get the treatment. In high school nobody wants to go to the prom with you. The third order of control involves secondary institutions -- the police, psychiatrists, or, quien sabe?, the National Security Agency.

In the case of Marie/Audrey/Robbie/etc., all three systems failed for a long time, simply because it seemed so hard to believe that a woman would kill her husband and try to poison her own child for insurance that was no more than modest. And, after all, Mom HAD taken her ailing daughter to hospital after hospital. In light of all this, how could she have "done it"? Well, she was able to do it precisely because she estimated just how extensive the parameters of normal behavior would be under these conditions. Of course the insurance policies weren't exactly grand. They couldn't be -- not if she were to escape suspicion. What would the control agents think if you took out a million dollar life insurance policy on your husband and he shortly blew up? Likewise Audrey/Robbin/Holly/Mildred/Gladys/Candy HAD to take her ailing daughter to hospitals. You don't find arsenic poisoning if you're not looking for it, whereas everyone who watches Oprah knows that you can anorexize yourself to death.

What makes this story more than ordinarily interesting is the fact that Mom was able to slip past all three levels of social control with such facility. She was finally identified as a no-goodnik by secondary institutions but seems to have done not much more than dye her hair and scoot away to Florida, where she was able, without a great deal of trouble, to seduce and marry an over-sized deadhead and finagle him into moving to Vermont. ("I like snow.") THEN -- and this really bespeaks contempt for agents of social control -- she confides to friends and husband that she has an incurable blood disease and must go to Texas for treatment. She does. And "passes away". It isn't long before hubby gets a phone call from Audrey's TWIN SISTER, and then a visit from her, and then a roll in the hay too. Can you believe the arrogance of this woman? She actually believes that she can pass for her own sister? And can you believe the community in Vermont? They ACCEPT HER for what she claims to be. Even her widow/lover believes she's a twin sister, even after they begin living together! "How stupid can you get?" asks one doubting thomas who worked with Robbie, the original, one-and-only first wife. And that's what finally does Emily/Audrey/Mabel/Ginger/Xanthippe in -- the second level of social control, community gossip. Some residents of this town in Vermont (Brattleboro, nice place in the Fall) check into her story and find it full of holes. The police and FBI are notified, and that's that. Guilty as charged.

The courtroom scene only last five or ten minutes. I wish it had been longer. I'd have liked to see the prosecution build its case, and the defense too. The justice system is a secondary institution too, and it would been nice to see a shift from lying and gossip and arguing between individuals to conflict mediated by officials representing us.

The performances are okay and the direction is functional. No more than that. Judith Light, I'm afraid, isn't unattractive, or, as Randolph Scott once said about a knockout beauty in one of his Westerns, "She ain't ugly." She is, though, endowed with facial features that are uniformly sinister: a firm, wide jaw; a tall thin forehead; and two glowering eyes that seem sunk deeply into their shadowy orbital sockets. (Does she ever blink? I don't know.) She is a good enough actress to pull off some cool switcheroos, too. She's giving one of the doctors a couple of strokes, "Tulane? Why that's a fine school!", all sweetness and pecan pies, and then suddenly a bear claw, "Are you telling me I can't take my own daughter home?" A bit more law and a bit less gossip would have improved this "based on a true story" film, but it's so bizarre that it's interesting despite its weaknesses.

Judith Light has fun playing real-life sociopath Audrey Marie Hilley, an Alabama housewife whose husband died of a mysterious stomach ailment, leaving Marie to freely spend his $31,000 life insurance policy; when that money runs out, Marie's daughter is the next to fall ill (she's got a policy also). TV-movie gives Light the opportunity to strut her stuff, changing wigs and accents with relish, yet the best performance comes from David Ogden Stiers as a blue-collar teddy bear from Florida whom Marie latches onto. The courtroom dramatics in the third act are rather feeble (skipping over the jury's verdict and going straight to the judge's sentence), and the segues to the daughter's plight--as well as the slow-moving police action--just get in the way. Light only does serious acting work in just one scene (a riveting arrest in a mall parking lot), yet she avoids the camp-possibilities of her outré role simply by staying true to the generalities of this colorful lady (and she nimbly fills in the blanks). Production aspects and direction are both above-average for a television feature, which is enjoyable if on the trashy side.