Lifetime films tend to focus on standard narratives and characters: typically female, often slightly ridiculous or salacious, and usually drama that occurs in the domestic sphere (infidelity, kidnapping, corruption, and – of course – murder).
With Murder at the Lighthouse, writer Shawn Riopelle tackles a quintessentially Lifetime subject – domestic abuse – albeit in an extremely grounded way. Or at least initially.
The film opens on the cusp of a storm. Jess (Skye Coyne) is a harried, desperately anxious woman who has recruited her friend Rory (Brandon Brooks) to sneak her across the Canadian border via the Great Lakes in his boat. The pronounced bruise on the side of her face and her fear about who and what Rory has told his brother (and anyone else for that matter) confirms that she’s on the run. The fact that she’s willing to drive a boat across a massive body of water during a lightning storm is a pretty significant indicator of how desperate she is to get away from her husband Colton (Mark Justice).
It’s not a spoiler to confirm that Colton is a police officer (this fact is revealed early on when he identifies himself as such to Rory’s brother Anthony). Later he tries to use his position of authority to pry information out of Deputy Foster (Rod Kasai) and lighthouse recluse Adeline (Shelli Manzoline), though nearly everyone he meets seems apprehensive of his intentions. This is because Justice plays the character with menace: every interaction carries the threat of violence, even when he’s “just” playing the role of worried husband searching for his missing wife.
When Jess winds up waylaid at Adeline’s cottage in the woods with a severely sprained ankle, the opportunity to hide is offset by her paranoia of being discovered. Since Jess can’t easily escape with her injury, she’s forced to rely on the mercy of Adeline.
The first act of Murder at the Lighthouse is positioned as the Lifetime version of Sleeping with the Enemy or Enough. A desperate woman finally finds the strength to escape her abusive husband and reinvent herself, but not before he tracks her down and she has to fight back.
Riopelle’s script is fast paced, shifting the action from escape to isolation to cat and mouse. Along the way Jess discovers something of a kindred spirit in Adeline, a woman who understands her situation, but who has her own motives for seeking solitude in the woods. The relationship between the two women is actually more significant that Jess’ flight from Colt, which helps to ground the film even when it threatens to become too sensational (which it absolutely does in the back half).
There’s a vital scene early on: Jess and Adeline stay up late, standing guard and keeping a look out for Colton. With their backs to each other, Jess peers out the backdoor while Adeline stares out the window; they’re facing opposite directions, but caught in a communal moment. Their whispers seem weighed down by the darkness of the cabin, but their faces are exposed in the soft light of the moon.
Director Eric D. Howell and cinematographer Bo Hakala expertly shoot this scene: there’s beauty in the way they have each other’s back, despite the terrible nature of Jess’s confession as she outlines the emotional and physical abuse she suffered under Colton’s tyranny.
The very deliberate framing. It’s a classic thriller set-up to feature a character hiding in the foreground while action unfolds in the background, but a key moment finds Colt questioning Adeline outside the cottage while Jess listens inside. A pot threatens to boil over on the stove as Jess waits with baited breath to discover if Adeline will sell her out, or if Colt will be appeased with her lies. It’s a great scene that’s filled with tension.
Murder at the Lighthouse shifts gears shortly after this and while the back half of the film has its share of twists and turns, it never rises to the same heights as its opening 45 minutes.
Coyne anchors the proceedings with a quiet desperation. Jess is running scared initially, but over the course of the film the character rises to the challenge: she discovers a strength that she didn’t know she had as she negotiates new and different threats and begins to fight back. It’s a powerful and necessary portrayal of a survivor and the film tellingly ends with the statistic that it takes partners of domestic abuse on average 7 times to escape their abuser.
Manzoline has the more challenging role, but the actor proves to be an excellent fit for Adeline. Her backstory is a mystery and Adeline’s motivations become increasingly murky as Murder at the Lighthouse progresses, but Manzoline is always excellent. Even when Riopelle complicates the narrative to such a degree that it’s not entirely clear what the audience is meant to feel by the end, watching Adeline struggle with her competing desires is still compelling.
Still, it’s hard not to yearn for the initial (simpler) story of a battered woman seeking refuge with an older, protective mother figure, in part because everything in the first half of the film works so well. Despite Coyne and Manzoline’s best efforts to negotiate the twists and reveals, the back half is over plotted and less successful. It’s not bad, but definitely not as good.
Murder at the Lighthouse airs Monday, February 24 on Lifetime.