Mommy Lightest

It cannot be said, nay SCREAMED, enough.

Judith Light is, and has always been, a national treasure. 

Quick Plot: Because director Bill Corcoran (last seen here with the Tara Reid screamer Vipers) loves us, we open on a sexy closeup of Ms. Light's lips purring out a beautiful first line:

What she doesn't specify is that the object of her affections was Nick, her grown son and only source of joy in Diana's life. She loves this young man so much that she wakes him up with a freshly frosted cake for his birthday. She loves him so much that she attends his court hearing and cheers him on as he loses. She loves him so much that she seduces his would-be landlord so the pending rental agreement can be nullified, meaning Nick has no other choice but to stay in Mom's house. 

It's, you know, not a very healthy relationship.

Furious when he realizes he's stuck at home, Nick packs his bags to crash with a friend, only for Jane to respond with a suicide attempt. She survives, and unwittingly leaves Nick even further away: he strikes a romance with hospital nurse Abby, who, as predicted by the cynical Diana, quickly gets pregnant. 

Diana tries everything to break up the young couple: faking prostitution records for Abby's background, hiring (and stiffing) an unhoused man to annul the marriage, and finally, paying off a pair of goons to just murder the poor girl. 

That wraps us back to the framing device of Diana's narration, coming from inside a jail cell because naturally, she's caught. But sweet Nick can't believe that his mother would do such a thing and in an act of true law and disorder, agrees to represent his own unstable mother in the murder trial of his own dead pregnant wife.

My gosh do I miss the era of making TV movie posters look like VC Andrews' book covers

Don't worry: the film has already established that Nick isn't a very good attorney.

Still, this is a wild, wild last act. Too Close to Home is based on the true story of a case I won't explain in detail as it may spoil the ending. But if this is your kind of jam, then spread it. Spread it well.

High Points

Seriously, I can never say enough good words about Judith Light. This is obviously a soap opera of a TV movie, but Light knows exactly how to command the camera as a juicy, needy sociopath

Low Points

It's inevitable in a movie light this, but there's simply no way Rick Schroder can summon the kind of obsession Diana has for him in Light's hands. Both Ricky and Nick are simply outmatched

Lessons Learned

A good son keeps an 8 x 10 glamour shot of his mother framed on his work desk

In the '90s, collies made excellent police dogs

Most girls don't dream of being proposed to the night that their boyfriends present falsified documentation of their past as sex workers

Rent/Bury/Buy

Too Close to Home is gloriously ripped from the headlines made-for-TV trash. I say that as a compliment. Find it on Peacock when you feel too clean.