Switched Narratives
There are spoilers here for this filmed stage play that in the end is not worth it.
The basic idea is appealing. We are presented with a man who seems to be the target of a massive scam involving a switched wife.
We sit through the scam as it tortures the guy with a cop on the side that just doesn’t get it. There’s so very much of this both is tedious and makes no sense.
We are supposed to be rewarded by a feint twist at the end when it is revealed that the cop — the centre of the thing — is in on the scam. If you’ve been patient, this works because the cop has been developed all along as our surrogate in the story. Unlike a Poirot, we are ahead of this hapless guy.
But in the last few minutes, we see that he has enlisted the actors in a murder play to stage the whole thing to catch the husband who has indeed murdered his wife.
This is a good twist, but massively unfair. They did not play by the rules. Many plot points makes less sense once we have this reveal. In a successful twisty mystery, after the reveal, things are supposed to make more sense. Not so here.
Production values are poor.
Posted in 2023
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.