Rebecca Jones-Howe's Blog, page 5
April 7, 2021
INTO THE DARKNESS – A Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews Review
When I originally started my journey back into the world of V.C. Andrews, I wondered if I’d even give the newer books a chance. Much of Andrews’ appeal seemed to slip in the 90s, but Simon and Shuster kept ploughing along with new gimmicks that ventured beyond the standard five-book family saga. Which takes us to Into the Darkness, a very rare standalone book in the V.C. Andrews canon.
Anyway, during one of my infrequent Value Village shopping trips, I came across a pretty pristine-looking copy of Into the Darkness, and so I took the plunge:
V.C. ANDREWS PORTRAYS HER MOST ROMANTIC COUPLE SINCE TROY AND HEAVEN IN THE CASTEEL SERIES . . .
As lovely as one of the precious gems at her parents’ jewellery store, Amber Taylor is shy and introspective–qualities misread by others as being stuck-up and superior. Facing a long, lonely summer working at the family shop, Amber’s world lights up when the Matthews family suddenly moves in to the house next door, a property that has stood neglected for the longest time.
And when she meets Brayden Matthews, Amber soon becomes infatuated with this handsome, quirky young man who seems to know her innermost feelings almost before she does, who takes her places she never knew existed in her small town. Their connection is electrifying, unlike anything Amber’s felt before. But as quickly as he appears, Brayden vanishes into the darkness. And finding out the truth about him will push Amber to the edge of madness . . .
Typically these “the best since . . .” promises always fall flat, but honestly, I’m one of the rare V.C. Andrews fans who found Heaven and Troy’s romance to be awfully boring AF. I thought Troy was way too gloomy. All he did was share angst and make sandwiches, man. This Grown-Ass woman needed more passion in her V.C. Andrews men.
Into the Darkness was published in 2012. I got the first impression that it was Simon & Shuster’s way to cash in the whole Twilight trend of brooding teenage boys and vampires and shit. I mean, the back synopsis clearly states that there’s something “odd” about Brayden. Which I instantly assumed meant he was a vampire.
I also got this book confused with the very similar Daughter of Darkness book, so yeah.
My Copy of Into the DarknessThis isn’t the first V.C. Andrews novel to feature a cover without a stepback photo, nor is it the first cover using a damn stock photo model, but picking it off the shelf just felt wrong, honestly. It’s off-brand. It’s knock-off.
I, like many other V.C. Andrews fans, often feel there’s something odd about reading V.C. Andrews books in modern times. The Shooting Stars series didn’t feel quite so strange because the covers still featured illustrations and my coming of age occurred in the early aughts, so it fits in with the “retro” aesthetic for me, personally.
But again, this takes place in 2012, when flip phones apparently still existed? So I dunno. Is it retro? There’s a Kiera Knightley reference, though. The book takes place in a small town called Echo Lake, which is supposed to be near Portland. Another very un-V.C. Andrews-like setting.
All this to say that the cover is weird and I fucking hate it. The original illustrated covers appealed to the fanbase because it spoke to them. The paintings lured you in. They inspired mystery. Once you saw that spooked girls’ face, you just HAD to pull the cover open. They spoke through that universal appearance.
I don’t know what to read in this cover model. Is she horny? Does she want me to follow her? The cover and the title font don’t really convey a story here.
Into the Darkness: The Grown-Ass ReviewSeeing that the cover and the synopsis don’t give us many clues about what to expect, we know we’re NOT getting a family drama, so let’s just dive right in, shall we?
An Innocent & Pretty, Yet Completely Naive Female ProtagonistMeet Amber Taylor, also known as Prudence Perfect to her “friends”, who always criticize her for being just that. At first, I quite liked Amber because she was less flowery with her language, unlike the former V.C. Andrews protagonists of the 80s. What she lacks in flowerly language, however, she makes up for in annoying obnoxiousness. Much of Amber’s internal monologue is about HOW MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE SHE IS.
She questions herself constantly too, which kind of makes me think back to when I was an insecure Christian teen with a ridiculous morality complex that made me assume I was somehow better than everyone. Like, shit just got a bit too real at times and I felt like I was reading my old high school blog. I wanted to die.
A Rags to Riches PlotAmber’s family lives in Echo Lake, a small tourist town a few hours outside of Portland that all the teenagers hate living in. That is, except for “Prudence Perfect” Amber, who spends the first chapter of the book referencing every facet of her life to jewels. Why jewels, you ask? Because her parents own the popular jewellery store in town, which basically makes them middle-class boring-ass.
BUT at least Amber lives next door to the creepy house in town, which takes us to…
A Vivid Gothic SettingThe book starts off with Amber outside looking at the empty neighbour’s house, which is this old dilapidated place that a new family has recently moved into. Amber sees the only teenage song watching her. She doesn’t exactly give us the best impression of him, because he’s literally STARING at her from the bushes.
My first thought was that there must be something mentally wrong with him. Why else would he stand there gaping at someone unashamedly?
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Not exactly hot, but Amber finds him attractive so she reciprocates to the attention in true “teenage girl written by a man” style:
For a few moments, I pretended not to have noticed him. I looked away and then sat on the wide moonstone blue porch railing and leaned back against the post as if I were posing for a sexy dramatic shot in a film. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath like when the doctor tells you to breathe in and hold it while he moves his stethoscope over your back. My breasts lifted against my thin, light jade-green sweater, and I held the air in my lungs for nearly thirty seconds. Then, as if some film director were telling me to look more relaxed and more seductive for the shot, I released my breath and brought my right hand up to fluff my thick, black-opal shoulder-length hair.
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The next day, when Amber catches the boy looking at her, she confronts him and they converse in the same flirtingly combative manner that Heaven did with Troy when they first met in Dark Angel. And sure, the back of the book says that this duo is like the next best thing since Heaven & Troy, but the dialogue honestly tries too damn hard to be snappy.
Brayden comes off as a recluse who talks a lot about Thoreau, which is fine, I guess, but also annoying. What I appreciate about him is that he’s pretty upfront and just asks Amber if she wants to go for a walk, which they do. The walk itself is kind of sexy. Because what can be sexier than a V.C. Andrews book with a romantic plot that kicks off from the beginning?
Usually V.C. Andrews books ramble on about perfection and naivete but hey, Into the Darkness simply introduces us to a dude and takes us for a walk in the actual darkness. I was very much down.
Flash Forward To…The walk, which they go on. I liked this walk because Brayden sneaks Amber into some of the private properties by the lake and ushers her through the dark toward a lagoon full of birds:
It wasn’t only the birds and the surprise opening on the shore that gave us a wide view of the lake, with the moonlight and stars making the water dazzling, that impressed and delighted me. It was the unique silence when so many beautiful things seemed asleep or even, I should say, meditating. Never before has I felt so much a part of it all. It was as if I had suddenly come to appreciate my own home. I felt like someone who had been wearing blinders all her life and suddenly had them removed.
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Amber asks him how he found out about some of the areas he takes her to, considering that he’s new to the neighbourhood. Brayden explains that he’s just like “one with nature” or some shit. He then goes on to explain that his mother is a famous artist struggling with severe depression. His father is some brain trust dude who is never around, which subsequently makes Brayden miserable and angsty AF.
So goth, right?
I was feeling this late night teenage romp so hard, but after that first walk, the book goes off on a bit of a tangent.
A Beloved Doting Paternal FigureBoth of Amber’s parents prove themselves to be annoyingly perfect parent figures. Her mom occasionally references her dad by his full name on the odd occasion, which is one of those V.C. Andrews-isms that nobody ever really talks about much.
Much of the book’s entire first half ventures back and forth between Amber’s thoughts about Brayden and her parents continually telling her to basically get it on with Brayden while also WASTING PRECIOUS BOOK TIME on dumb stupid nonsensical parent rambling like this BS:
“As I recall, you quoted poetry when we first met, Gregory Taylor,” Mom said. She sat back and narrowed her eyes in a pose of faux suspicion. “Was it just a slick come-on or did you mean it?”
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Dad tugged his left earlobe as if he was hoping to shake the right response out of his brain. “It happened to be spontaneous. the moment I set eyes on you, I thought, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou ar more lovely and more temperate…”
“That wasn’t the quote,” Mom said.
“It wasn’t?”
“No, you were a Jon Denver fan.”
“Oh, right.” Dad smiled. “‘You’re so beautiful, I can’t believe my eyes each time I see you again.'”
“I thought he made it up until he played the song for me,” Mom told me. “Of course, I wondered how many girls he used that line on, but he swore I was the first,” she added, looking at him suspiciously again.
“You were—the first and only, Noreen, and always will be.”
So unnecessary. And pointless. And frustrating. Because we all know that there’s NOTHING worse than a pErFeCt couple. Both in fiction and reality, mind you.
Some Good Olde School MisogynyLater, Brayden takes Amber on another walk to a creek somewhere. She goes in her bathing suit and the two end up chilling on a rock. Amber falls asleep on said rock, and then, in what feels like a dream, they engage in some PG-13 antics.
“You make me feel alive,” he whispered, kissing my ear and my cheek and then found my lips turned and waiting for his. It was as if he had awakened another me, waiting to be awoken, happy to be awoken. I moaned and welcomed his touch everywhere, my heart beating like a racehorse finally permitted to gallop, to drive every part of itself to the place it was mean to be.
page 111
Brayden disappears after the questionable rock make-out session and then Amber spends a TON of book time pondering whether or not she should lose herself to his uber angsty sex appeal.
A Hostile Maternal Figure (+ Bonus Mean Girl!)And then there was the way he looked at me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that disturbed me. I didn’t see him gazing at me with that sly, licentious look that could make a girl feel naked, but I did have the feeling that he could see through not only my clothes but any attempt I made to hide something about myself. I concluded that it was the look of someone wise beyond his years, just as I did when I’d said he sounded as if he had lived for centuries. It was as if he knew things about me that I had yet to discover about myself and that would only come form wisdom. Wisdom was different from intelligence. Wisdom came from years of experience. How did someone my age have so much of it?
page 51
As Brayden fades into obscurity, Amber finds herself spending more time with her “friend” Ellie, a girl who seems to hate her but also VERY BADLY wants her to come to this stupid teenager party at Charlotte’s house. Who’s Charlotte, you ask? It doesn’t fucking matter!
At the party, Amber gets kind of slutty and drunk on herself. Not on the booze, because she’s FAAAAAR to prudish to stoop to everyone else’s level. Nevertheless, she thrives on the attention and on her confidence and actually gives jock Shane a chance to try to impress her when he offers to take her away from the party. At that point, Amber realizes that everyone at the party is getting unhinged, and so she and Shane go to the nearby diner and hit it off.
The two start “dating” but Amber’s attention always drifts back to throughts of either Brayden or of comparing herself to the other girls, who she spends a miraculous amount of time disparaging:
I know none of my girlfriends at school would understand how being attractive brought responsibilities, but I always felt obligated to make sure that I didn’t flaunt myself or take anything anyone said for granted. I also felt I had to be careful about whom I showed any interest in, even look at twice. People, especially older men, were always telling me I would be a heartbreaker. To me, that didn’t sound very nice. I envisioned a trail of men with shattered emotions threatening to commit suicide everywhere I went.
page 9
In this scene, Amber puts on a two-piece bathing suit for her boat date with Shane:
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! IT’S FUCKING 2012, ANDREW NEIDERMAN! STOP IT!If I wore it, thought, I’d bury Prudence Perfect forever. I turned every which way, gazing at myself in the full-length mirror. I pictured Shayne’s face after I stripped down to my suit. The look I imagine coming into his eyes brought a blush to my cheeks and neck, but rather than any shame or embarrassment, it brought a sense of power with it. How easily I could make him tremble with desire, I thought. I held a pose, lifting my breast and turning my waist. Was this a terrible thing to feel? How do you know when you’ve moved from pride into arrogance, an arrogance that causes you to flaunt yourself and perhaps diminish the respect any man would have for you?
page 153
Afraid of just that, I quickly took off the two-piece.
Amber stands naked in her bedroom and feels Brayden’s presence there with her. She feels him touch her, feels him kiss her. Then she puts on the totally modest one-piece and some clothes over it and goes out for the lake date with Shane.
The date goes well. The two flirt and a rather convincing, albeit annoying manner. They end up at Shane’s house. Amber changes in the spare bedroom, only to be confronted by Shane’s bitchy sister, Wendi.
As she drew closer, I thought Wendi would single-handedly make some plastic surgeon wealthy. I foresaw liposuction, breast enhancement, and endless Botox in her future.
page 173
Wendi mocks Amber for losing her virginity to Shane, claiming that Shane was just flirting with Amber so he could bone her. Rumours start flooding, but Wendi’s “trick?” doesn’t amount to much, because Amber “feels” Brayden tell her to pretend the rumours are true. Amber tells all her “girlfriends” that Shane was a crappy lay, referring to him as the brilliant and totally 2012-insult, “Mister Missfire” .
Several chapters are wasted on this plot point, though its during Amber’s fake sexual revelation that she feels Brayden cheering her on. Shane takes Amber on a date at a fancy restaurant and Amber quickly goes Shania Twain on him.
In the falling out, Brayden makes a quick physical reappearance, taking Amber back into the woods, where they bone and brood and Brayden says that his mother’s condition is worsening.
A Tragic DeathTension builds in an awkward manner, with Brayden frequently disappearing and Amber trying to call his cell phone that he never answers. Then, when his father comes to take his mother to the hospital, Brayden hides out a cabin in the woods. Amber goes to
Then, Brayden disappears entirely. Frantic to find him, Amber trespasses into Brayden’s house, finding all the rooms empty but his bedroom. She then ventures into the attic that housed mom’s painting studio, but all Amber finds is this single painting:
…[I]t was clearly a portrait of Brayden, but everything about him was distorted. It was as if she meant to depict his face on a raindrop. The shape of it was elongated in places and widened in others. His eyes looked as if they were spilling out of their sockets and running down his cheeks. His cheeks were porous, the skin looking magnified so that each pore was clearly seen. his nose was shaped so strangely so that it seemed to be riding on a wave, and his mouth, wide open, was cavernous and dark like the inside of a pipe. She had done the head, but the neck was still in drawing stage, and it, too, looked like liquid, spilling down from under his chin and jawbone.
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Amber leaves the house, bones Brayden a few more times before he gets really ominous and disappears entirely. Like for good. She trespasses the house again, only to find the house vacated entirely. Then Amber’s parents find out and ground her.
In a long and convoluted manner, Amber finds out who the landlord of the house is, and then she drives all the way to Portland to confront the landlord (a businessman who is actually Brayden’s grandfather!) about where the Matthews’ went.
Fantastic Psychological HorrorCaught off-guard, the grandfather explains that Brayden died in a car crash and that his mother never recovered, leaving Amber with the realizing that she was seeing a ghost this entire time.
Honestly, this was not a revelation that I expected, especially not in a V.C. Andrews book. The entire time I expected he was going to be a vampire, so this revelation was actually a fun surprise for me.
I liked the gothic spin on it, the subtle horror, and especially the sadness. In the end, Amber goes back home and comes to terms with her delusion. She sees a therapist and returns to school and plays normal again. But then she makes a trip back to the magical fuck-cabin where she and Brayden got it on, and it’s there that she finds a notebook buried under the floorboards filled with angsty poems.
Incest!There’s boning but it’s nowhere near incestuous boning. Just spectral boning, which would be kind of fun if it weren’t written like it was fucking Christie Longchamp telling me about her perfect and amazing and utterly life-changing the boning was.
I felt my whole body soften in his arms. I was a total surrender, a willing surrender. I was eager to see what other places on my body would tingle and awaken. The woman I often pictured curled up inside of me like some mature fetus awoke and quickly unfolded throughout, slipping under my breasts, around my heart, and down through my thighs, even to my toes.
page 262
Like if you’re gonna bone a ghost, at least make it hot.
Some Really Bad WritingLet’s continue with the sex, because I know you’re all waiting for more more classic Neiderman mentions of breasts:
Hot. Super hot.My breasts seemed to blossom under his touch, his lips. As small as our space was inside his sleeping bag, I never felt uncomfortable for a single moment. My whole body had turned into soft clay to be molded and shaped so it would fit neatly against his, but what surely made it more wonderful was the way we moved together as if we had truly become one body, every part of me anticipating every part of him.
page 262
I’m gonna continue focusinng on the sex here because the entirity of the V.C. Andrews sex universe can be found on this gloriously horrible page.
I felt my whole body soften in his arms. It was a total surrender, a willing surrender. I was eager to see what other places on my body would tingle and awaken. The woman I often pictured curled up inside me like some mature fetus awoke and quickly unfolded throughout, slipping under my breasts, around my heart, and down through my thighs, even to my toes.
page 262
I can’t, Andrew. I don’t want to think about a baby unfurling INSIDE of my breasts. Why are you doing this? Why in the world do you think women would enjoy reading this?
Stop talking about breasts and put some fingerbanging in your sex scenes, dude.Lastly, I share with you some more of Amber’s judgemental sex wisdom. This passage really cemented my frustration with her BS rambling.
Would it always be like this? How could any of my far more sexually active friends experience anything like I was experiencing? From what I heard them say, their sex seemed purely selfish, each of them caring only for what satisfaction he or she could draw out of the other. I thought of them as being crude and boisterous lovers who rushed in and out of pockets of pleasure, barely recalling where they had been or why. For them, sex was nothing more than a good piece of chocolate.
page 262
The judgemental horny Christian girl who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye and still masturbated every day is TRIGGERED with shame, dammit.
My Final RatingI find the problem with the more “modern” V.C. Andrews books struggle with is feeling less shocking than the ones form the 70s-80s. I guess partly because times have changed and what shocked before fails to shock now. But we still see the same themes of “purity” and “naivete” that have lingered around forever. These themes are integral to V.C. Andrews protagonists, which means that Amber simply wouldn’t have been a proper V.C. Andrews character if she were a bit more free with her sexuality and confident in herself.
But as a teen in 2012, she just comes off a bit obnoxious and, quite frankly, annoying. She has her head on her shoulders but she also doesn’t. I mean, she did totally bang a ghost, so…
To be honest, I liked the ghost take on this one. Again, I expected vampires, but got a ghost. and I feel the overall reveal was done a bit sloppily. Its impact on Amber was well-executed. There were parts I could appreciate about this book and it was a nice supernatural twist on the standard V.C. Andrews love story. I just wish we didn’t have to slog through a bunch of lacklustre teen drama to get there.
The post INTO THE DARKNESS – A Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
April 1, 2021
V.C. Andrews’ HIDDEN JEWEL – Lifetime Movie Review
By this point, if you’ve engaged with my Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews series, you know that I don’t often love the notorious “4th book spawn of the protagonist” stories. See here. And here. They typically end up being a rehashing of the previous character’s drama but with a couple new rape-y twists for the daughter. People responded poorly to the above promotional still of Lifetime’s Hidden Jewel. First, because Pearl’s hair wasn’t blond, and second, because WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL IS UP WITH THOSE BANGS, YO? Are these bad bangs an ominous sign? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s final adaptation in the Landry Series, Hidden Jewel.
Some Notes Going InI remember finding a copy of Hidden Jewel at a Value Village while on vacation in Vancouver. I read the entire book during the four-hour trip back home. There’s little that I remember of it, other than the fact that Ruby went a little haywire, Pearl wanted to be a doctor and was dating a dude named Jack.
For some reason, Lifetime decided to change Jack’s name to John, which irks me to no end for absolutely no reason. And the actor they got to play John, while super cute, looks more like a Jack than a John. I suppose in terms of botching V.C. Andrews books, this is a pretty minor flaw in terms of flaws, yeah, I was not pleased.
The Passage of TimePiano music. Bayou stock footage. But this time, we’re in a dream, where Pearl stumbles around the swamp and finds a dead Paul, who grabs her and asks for help. Pearl wakes, and thankfully her promo image hair isn’t as bad at her 80s curly hair. She reminds me a lot of Max from Stranger Things, which is cool, right? It’s cool.
Also of note is that Ruby now has some KILLER 80s volume going now, and considering that she’s supposed to be like nearly 40, I can say that Lifetime did a half-decent job with trying to age the actress. She still looks young, but she looks older than she did in All That Glitters. Beau, however? They literally just slapped a pair of glasses on him for one scene and gave him a Patrick Bateman power suit and were like, “This baby-faced dude, he’s a legit MAN now and you have no choice but to believe it.” It’s funny because in some scenes he looks like an 80s dad, but then in others, they dress him in jeans and a rugby sweater and it’s like, “Is he, tho?”
LEMME JUST SAY THAT TY WOOD IN SERIAL KILLER GLASSES IS THE SEXIEST TY WOOD. I’D TOTES DRAW HIS PEEN.Also, Nina’s back and has literally not aged. Must be all the voodoo, which Ruby supposedly has been keeping secret from her family life. Despite not seeing any of it in both Pearl in the Mist and All That Glitters, this plot just rears its head like hardcore Catholic guilt.
Pearl’s LifeIn the morning, Ruby worries about Pearl’s recurring nightmares, but then we meet Jean and Pierre, Pearl’s twin brothers who don’t look identical even though they were supposed to be identical. Then we get Ruby fawning over how lUcKy PeArL iS, because this is V.C. Andrews and EVERY spawn book has this dumb shit scene.
Later is Pearl’s graduation party, where Paul’s sister Jean comes to deliver a gift of a photo album. Inside, Pearl finds a picture of Paul, which forces Ruby to deliver a giant passage of worries exposition about how this is an omen of bad things to come. Pearl worries, but then crashes into her boyfriend Claude, who takes her into a side room and forces her to have sex with him.
Pearl insists that “she doesn’t wanna have sex until it feels special”.
Claude whips out a condom. “And this doesn’t feel special?” he asks.
Like hey, safe sex! That’s rad! But safe sex without consent isn’t rad! Pearl shoves him off her.
“I’m like, a 10, Pearl. And you’re like… a 6.” He goes on in his best valley girl. “Like, seriously. I can’t even get you to feel anything, like, any emotion whatsoever. Not, like, that I was even looking for that.”
Turns out Claude was just looking to bone a nerd and now he can’t, so he peaces out and leaves Pearl with some obvious sexual insecurity that she gets to resolve later.
Nina dies suddenly and is summoned to Mama Dede’s like, church place? Turns out Nina said something about some warning of an omen coming for Ruby, which sends Ruby spinning out of control. Mama Dede says that “Ruby knows what to do”. She then tells her that Ruby needs to bring a sacrifice to the graveyard. It’s all a bunch of convoluted stuff, but apparently Nina “knows something” that she needs to tell Ruby about some horrible thing she did in her past.
Ruby literally has no idea, even though it could literally be one of two things. She was horrible to her already horrible sister. She was also horrible to Paul. So like, maybe make amends for both those things, Ruby? Maybe start there?
Pearl insists that there is no “voodoo”, but then later wakes in the night to find her mom going full on The Craft mode, chanting with candles and stuff in the backyard.
I AM LIVING FOR THIS CHEAP RETRO WITCH MOVIE SET AESTHETICHoping to quell Ruby’s paranoia, the family goes on a relaxing vacation at some cottage somewhere. Ruby demands that the boys be careful, but when Jean and Pierre head outside to play, Jean gets bitten by a snake and dies. And I’ll be damned, as cheesy and poorly-written this scene is, the splitting of twins always kills me.
Also, whatever happened to Uncle Jean? Is he still in the hospital? Is he dead? Does Ruby not care? Did I forget that he died?
Anyway, the family spends the rest of their vacation crying over Jean’s death, that is, until Pierre stumbles into the room and faints. Pearl does her best breathing technique coaching to help him out, but Pierre still ends up in the hospital with a myriad of random symptoms that none of the doctors can figure out.
Pearl swears that Pierre is suffering from Broken Heart Syndrome, which actually isn’t just a soap opera illness, despite sounding like one when Pearl talks to a psychiatrist about it. Ruby, however, knows exactly what’s up.
Back to the Bayou (Again!)After performing the sacrifice at the graveyard, Ruby gets news from Nina saying that Ruby needs to figure out who she wronged and who has cursed her, otherwise the curse will worsen. Pearl tries to get Ruby to remain at Pierre’s side in order to help him get better, but Ruby continues talking in this breathless voice that I guess is supposed to convey her delusion.
Eventually, she runs away to the bayou, leaving Pearl and Beau to follow. Beau then delivers the past truth about Ruby’s marriage to Paul. And God, do I ever hate these scenes. The actors have little but the exposition to properly deliver it all. It’s the most wooden I’ve ever seen Beau.
The two head to the now-abandoned Cypress Woods, which is the same Cypress Woods from All That Glitters but with a few Lifetime prop vines thrown over the front gate to make it look abandoned. Before they can head inside, they’re confronted by a stranger on the property, some dude who works for the oil company named John who’s surveying for the new oil wells in the middle of the night for some reason.
Beau tries to call the hospital and then John does his little flirting routine with Pearl, telling her all the random shit he knows about her. “Word gets around here,” he says.
Beau returns with news that Pierre has taken a turn for the worst. On their way out, Beau slips on a step and shatters some bones in his arm. The doctor says he needs a lengthy and immediate operation, which is an effective way to make Pearl the only helpful person left in the family to help Pierre.
Back to the Bayou (A Third Time!)Pearl teams up with John and returns to Cypress Woods in another attempt to find Ruby. They find her handprints on one of the dusty tables that so obviously isn’t the same interior as the original Cypress Woods set. Pearl decides to stay the night. John decides to stay to protect her, and he does when a tarantula just SUDDENLY appears on her chest.
He knocks the spider off, claiming that turantulas get scared when someone disturbs their webs, which is a bunch of BS.
Turantulas actually build burrows, JOHN!The two find a bedroom with two beds to sleep on, but then Pearl has the dream with Paul again, which scared her enough to ask John to sleep next to her. They kiss a bit, but in the morning they wake a ridiculous amount of space apart.
The Past Makes A ReturnOn the way to the Tate mansion, Pearl crashes into Buster (the dude who tries to buy her, and then later tried to rape her). He says Pearl looks exactly like Ruby, even though she doesn’t.
While talking with Jean at the Tate’s, Glady’s conveniently wheels herself on a wheelchair. She’s apparently old now, even though she looks exactly the same as she did in the previous movie. She then confesses to being the one who put the picture of Paul in the album, as well as being the one who put the hex on Ruby.
She just…gets away with it, too! After spilling out her soap opera vengeance monologue, Pearl’s just like, “Let’s get going!” She and John head back to his apartment. He makes her spaghetti and puts some hot sauce on it because it turns out that he’s one of those dudes who makes hot sauce a personality trait.
“Do you like things pretty spicy?” he asks.
Turns out Pearl does, and the two end up having some great vanilla sex over a piano ballad. And it’s like COME ON, LIFETIME! Just let some people have some actual energy and tension. The actors have some chemistry and do their best here, but they literally have nothing else to work with other than the direction like, kiss and writhe a bit. This is doing nothing for me, unlike this scene from Superstore which has no intimacy but is the sexiest thing ever because it’s allllllll about that characterisation, yo.
Learn to write better sex scenes, Lifetime!The next morning, John comes out of the shower and the two talk about how magical and life-changing their sex was. Pearl admits it was her first time. Then she says that she never thought she was capable of feeling love and BOOM, all her insecurities are gone, all because John stirred some hot sauce into a pot full of macaroni. Er, spaghetti.
“There’s so much more to life under the surface,” Pearl says.
Just One Last Rape Plot Point For Ya’llBuster, who also hasn’t aged in nearly 20 years, come back to tell Pearl that he’s found Ruby and that she’s in poor shape. He takes her to his shack (even though I thought he was rich?). OF COURSE, Ruby isn’t there. But what Buster does have is a homemade cage that he made to keep her in.
You know what happens next. There’s a half-decent action sequence where Pearl fights back against Buster, eventually managing to use her medical knowledge to position a knife against his throat. She threatens to cut his jugular and bleed him out, which is enough to get him to crawl into his own cage.
Pearl escapes through the woods and crashes into John again. Anyway, that misogynistic action sequence out of the way, it’s time to get back to finding Ruby.
Believing in MagicRuby’s right back where they expected her to be, in the actual Cypress Woods set. Ruby’s legit crazy now, and Pearl finally gives in, relenting that Gladys was the one who used Paul’s hatred for Ruby to power the hex against her. After more breathless exposition, Pearl admits that Paul wasn’t angry with Ruby in her dream, but that he was asking for help.
WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE FOR SOME GREAT CONTEXT IN THE BEGINNING, PEARL!
Ruby suddenly realizes that painting him as she remembered him (dead in the water, for some reason?) as a sacrifice is the key to removing the hex. This way, Paul will see how much Ruby loved him.
They find Mama Dede at Paul’s grave and do a while Charmed seance thing. Wind blows. Music plays. They burn the painting and Paul accepts Ruby’s plea for forgiveness. Then Ruby, Peal and John all walk off, leaving Mama Dede to clean up all her seance stuff by herself.
One Last Dose of MagicBack at the hospital, Ruby’s back to her normal voice.
“So much of life is a mystery,” she says.
Pearl admits that not knowing is what makes life a bit more exciting, which is a fun little character shift in her, considering that she’s supposed to be rigid and factual all the time. It is a nice little mother/daughter moment. Then the two join Beau and the worsening Pierre in the hospital. No longer hopeless, Ruby vows that she can feel Pierre fighting. Then, two second later, Pierre wakes and takes his mask off.
Back to the Bayou! Pt. 39,003 (HOLY SHIT WHY CAN’T WE JUST STAY HERE ALREADY)Pearl goes off to college and tells John about refraction. They kiss and express amazement with each other. Then, later, they head back to Cypress woods where Ruby’s fixing the place up for Pearl and John.
It’s a sweet ending, but I’m left wondering why Cypress Woods isn’t the Tate’s property? What the hell?
Final ThoughtsSo this wasn’t awful. I liked the actress who played Pearl. She also apparently played Leigh in the final movie of the Casteel series (and had equally bad bangs there too). But she’s a good actress who gave Pearl a good head on a good pair of shoulders. Despite the wandering plot, she managed to carry the movie.
I’ve got a few qualms with the bad aging of the characters, but I really loved the introduction of the 80s wardrobe and appreciate that true V.C. Andrews aesthetic in the movie’s early scenes. The voodoo stuff felt really jammed in there. It especially felt forced to be a part of Ruby’s character, which we only saw vaguely with her Grandmere in the first movie.
My only other qualm is that Giselle is never mentioned. Ruby has no guilt for the part she played in her sister’s complete erasing from history. Like Giselle was a truly awful human being, but Ruby’s a grown-ass woman now and really should be able to acknowledge the fact that she likely wronged Giselle even worse than she wronged Paul.
Anyway, good for Pearl and all that, right?
The post V.C. Andrews’ HIDDEN JEWEL – Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
V.C. Andrews’ HIDDEN JEWEL: Lifetime Movie Review
By this point, if you’ve engaged with my Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews series, you know that I don’t often love the notorious “4th book spawn of the protagonist” stories. See here. And here. They typically end up being a rehashing of the previous character’s drama but with a couple new rape-y twists for the daughter. People responded poorly to the above promotional still of Lifetime’s Hidden Jewel. First, because Pearl’s hair wasn’t blond, and second, because WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL IS UP WITH THOSE BANGS, YO? Are these bad bangs an ominous sign? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s final adaptation in the Landry Series, Hidden Jewel.
Some Notes Going InI remember finding a copy of Hidden Jewel at a Value Village while on vacation in Vancouver. I read the entire book during the four-hour trip back home. There’s little that I remember of it, other than the fact that Ruby went a little haywire, Pearl wanted to be a doctor and was dating a dude named Jack.
For some reason, Lifetime decided to change Jack’s name to John, which irks me to no end for absolutely no reason. And the actor they got to play John, while super cute, looks more like a Jack than a John. I suppose in terms of botching V.C. Andrews books, this is a pretty minor flaw in terms of flaws, yeah, I was not pleased.
The Passage of TimePiano music. Bayou stock footage. But this time, we’re in a dream, where Pearl stumbles around the swamp and finds a dead Paul, who grabs her and asks for help. Pearl wakes, and thankfully her promo image hair isn’t as bad at her 80s curly hair. She reminds me a lot of Max from Stranger Things, which is cool, right? It’s cool.
Also of note is that Ruby now has some KILLER 80s volume going now, and considering that she’s supposed to be like nearly 40, I can say that Lifetime did a half-decent job with trying to age the actress. She still looks young, but she looks older than she did in All That Glitters. Beau, however? They literally just slapped a pair of glasses on him for one scene and gave him a Patrick Bateman power suit and were like, “This baby-faced dude, he’s a legit MAN now and you have no choice but to believe it.” It’s funny because in some scenes he looks like an 80s dad, but then in others, they dress him in jeans and a rugby sweater and it’s like, “Is he, tho?”
LEMME JUST SAY THAT TY WOOD IN SERIAL KILLER GLASSES IS THE SEXIEST TY WOOD. I’D TOTES DRAW HIS PEEN.Also, Nina’s back and has literally not aged. Must be all the voodoo, which Ruby supposedly has been keeping secret from her family life. Despite not seeing any of it in both Pearl in the Mist and All That Glitters, this plot just rears its head like hardcore Catholic guilt.
Pearl’s LifeIn the morning, Ruby worries about Pearl’s recurring nightmares, but then we meet Jean and Pierre, Pearl’s twin brothers who don’t look identical even though they were supposed to be identical. Then we get Ruby fawning over how lUcKy PeArL iS, because this is V.C. Andrews and EVERY spawn book has this dumb shit scene.
Later is Pearl’s graduation party, where Paul’s sister Jean comes to deliver a gift of a photo album. Inside, Pearl finds a picture of Paul, which forces Ruby to deliver a giant passage of worries exposition about how this is an omen of bad things to come. Pearl worries, but then crashes into her boyfriend Claude, who takes her into a side room and forces her to have sex with him.
Pearl insists that “she doesn’t wanna have sex until it feels special”.
Claude whips out a condom. “And this doesn’t feel special?” he asks.
Like hey, safe sex! That’s rad! But safe sex without consent isn’t rad! Pearl shoves him off her.
“I’m like, a 10, Pearl. And you’re like… a 6.” He goes on in his best valley girl. “Like, seriously. I can’t even get you to feel anything, like, any emotion whatsoever. Not, like, that I was even looking for that.”
Turns out Claude was just looking to bone a nerd and now he can’t, so he peaces out and leaves Pearl with some obvious sexual insecurity that she gets to resolve later.
Nina dies suddenly and is summoned to Mama Dede’s like, church place? Turns out Nina said something about some warning of an omen coming for Ruby, which sends Ruby spinning out of control. Mama Dede says that “Ruby knows what to do”. She then tells her that Ruby needs to bring a sacrifice to the graveyard. It’s all a bunch of convoluted stuff, but apparently Nina “knows something” that she needs to tell Ruby about some horrible thing she did in her past.
Ruby literally has no idea, even though it could literally be one of two things. She was horrible to her already horrible sister. She was also horrible to Paul. So like, maybe make amends for both those things, Ruby? Maybe start there?
Pearl insists that there is no “voodoo”, but then later wakes in the night to find her mom going full on The Craft mode, chanting with candles and stuff in the backyard.
I AM LIVING FOR THIS CHEAP RETRO WITCH MOVIE SET AESTHETICHoping to quell Ruby’s paranoia, the family goes on a relaxing vacation at some cottage somewhere. Ruby demands that the boys be careful, but when Jean and Pierre head outside to play, Jean gets bitten by a snake and dies. And I’ll be damned, as cheesy and poorly-written this scene is, the splitting of twins always kills me.
Also, whatever happened to Uncle Jean? Is he still in the hospital? Is he dead? Does Ruby not care? Did I forget that he died?
Anyway, the family spends the rest of their vacation crying over Jean’s death, that is, until Pierre stumbles into the room and faints. Pearl does her best breathing technique coaching to help him out, but Pierre still ends up in the hospital with a myriad of random symptoms that none of the doctors can figure out.
Pearl swears that Pierre is suffering from Broken Heart Syndrome, which actually isn’t just a soap opera illness, despite sounding like one when Pearl talks to a psychiatrist about it. Ruby, however, knows exactly what’s up.
Back to the Bayou (Again!)After performing the sacrifice at the graveyard, Ruby gets news from Nina saying that Ruby needs to figure out who she wronged and who has cursed her, otherwise the curse will worsen. Pearl tries to get Ruby to remain at Pierre’s side in order to help him get better, but Ruby continues talking in this breathless voice that I guess is supposed to convey her delusion.
Eventually, she runs away to the bayou, leaving Pearl and Beau to follow. Beau then delivers the past truth about Ruby’s marriage to Paul. And God, do I ever hate these scenes. The actors have little but the exposition to properly deliver it all. It’s the most wooden I’ve ever seen Beau.
The two head to the now-abandoned Cypress Woods, which is the same Cypress Woods from All That Glitters but with a few Lifetime prop vines thrown over the front gate to make it look abandoned. Before they can head inside, they’re confronted by a stranger on the property, some dude who works for the oil company named John who’s surveying for the new oil wells in the middle of the night for some reason.
Beau tries to call the hospital and then John does his little flirting routine with Pearl, telling her all the random shit he knows about her. “Word gets around here,” he says.
Beau returns with news that Pierre has taken a turn for the worst. On their way out, Beau slips on a step and shatters some bones in his arm. The doctor says he needs a lengthy and immediate operation, which is an effective way to make Pearl the only helpful person left in the family to help Pierre.
Back to the Bayou (A Third Time!)Pearl teams up with John and returns to Cypress Woods in another attempt to find Ruby. They find her handprints on one of the dusty tables that so obviously isn’t the same interior as the original Cypress Woods set. Pearl decides to stay the night. John decides to stay to protect her, and he does when a tarantula just SUDDENLY appears on her chest.
He knocks the spider off, claiming that turantulas get scared when someone disturbs their webs, which is a bunch of BS.
Turantulas actually build burrows, JOHN!The two find a bedroom with two beds to sleep on, but then Pearl has the dream with Paul again, which scared her enough to ask John to sleep next to her. They kiss a bit, but in the morning they wake a ridiculous amount of space apart.
The Past Makes A ReturnOn the way to the Tate mansion, Pearl crashes into Buster (the dude who tries to buy her, and then later tried to rape her). He says Pearl looks exactly like Ruby, even though she doesn’t.
While talking with Jean at the Tate’s, Glady’s conveniently wheels herself on a wheelchair. She’s apparently old now, even though she looks exactly the same as she did in the previous movie. She then confesses to being the one who put the picture of Paul in the album, as well as being the one who put the hex on Ruby.
She just…gets away with it, too! After spilling out her soap opera vengeance monologue, Pearl’s just like, “Let’s get going!” She and John head back to his apartment. He makes her spaghetti and puts some hot sauce on it because it turns out that he’s one of those dudes who makes hot sauce a personality trait.
“Do you like things pretty spicy?” he asks.
Turns out Pearl does, and the two end up having some great vanilla sex over a piano ballad. And it’s like COME ON, LIFETIME! Just let some people have some actual energy and tension. The actors have some chemistry and do their best here, but they literally have nothing else to work with other than the direction like, kiss and writhe a bit. This is doing nothing for me, unlike this scene from Superstore which has no intimacy but is the sexiest thing ever because it’s allllllll about that characterisation, yo.
Learn to write better sex scenes, Lifetime!The next morning, John comes out of the shower and the two talk about how magical and life-changing their sex was. Pearl admits it was her first time. Then she says that she never thought she was capable of feeling love and BOOM, all her insecurities are gone, all because John stirred some hot sauce into a pot full of macaroni. Er, spaghetti.
“There’s so much more to life under the surface,” Pearl says.
Just One Last Rape Plot Point For Ya’llBuster, who also hasn’t aged in nearly 20 years, come back to tell Pearl that he’s found Ruby and that she’s in poor shape. He takes her to his shack (even though I thought he was rich?). OF COURSE, Ruby isn’t there. But what Buster does have is a homemade cage that he made to keep her in.
You know what happens next. There’s a half-decent action sequence where Pearl fights back against Buster, eventually managing to use her medical knowledge to position a knife against his throat. She threatens to cut his jugular and bleed him out, which is enough to get him to crawl into his own cage.
Pearl escapes through the woods and crashes into John again. Anyway, that misogynistic action sequence out of the way, it’s time to get back to finding Ruby.
Believing in MagicRuby’s right back where they expected her to be, in the actual Cypress Woods set. Ruby’s legit crazy now, and Pearl finally gives in, relenting that Gladys was the one who used Paul’s hatred for Ruby to power the hex against her. After more breathless exposition, Pearl admits that Paul wasn’t angry with Ruby in her dream, but that he was asking for help.
WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE FOR SOME GREAT CONTEXT IN THE BEGINNING, PEARL!
Ruby suddenly realizes that painting him as she remembered him (dead in the water, for some reason?) as a sacrifice is the key to removing the hex. This way, Paul will see how much Ruby loved him.
They find Mama Dede at Paul’s grave and do a while Charmed seance thing. Wind blows. Music plays. They burn the painting and Paul accepts Ruby’s plea for forgiveness. Then Ruby, Peal and John all walk off, leaving Mama Dede to clean up all her seance stuff by herself.
One Last Dose of MagicBack at the hospital, Ruby’s back to her normal voice.
“So much of life is a mystery,” she says.
Pearl admits that not knowing is what makes life a bit more exciting, which is a fun little character shift in her, considering that she’s supposed to be rigid and factual all the time. It is a nice little mother/daughter moment. Then the two join Beau and the worsening Pierre in the hospital. No longer hopeless, Ruby vows that she can feel Pierre fighting. Then, two second later, Pierre wakes and takes his mask off.
Back to the Bayou! Pt. 39,003 (HOLY SHIT WHY CAN’T WE JUST STAY HERE ALREADY)Pearl goes off to college and tells John about refraction. They kiss and express amazement with each other. Then, later, they head back to Cypress woods where Ruby’s fixing the place up for Pearl and John.
It’s a sweet ending, but I’m left wondering why Cypress Woods isn’t the Tate’s property? What the hell?
Final ThoughtsSo this wasn’t awful. I liked the actress who played Pearl. She also apparently played Leigh in the final movie of the Casteel series (and had equally bad bangs there too). But she’s a good actress who gave Pearl a good head on a good pair of shoulders. Despite the wandering plot, she managed to carry the movie.
I’ve got a few qualms with the bad aging of the characters, but I really loved the introduction of the 80s wardrobe and appreciate that true V.C. Andrews aesthetic in the movie’s early scenes. The voodoo stuff felt really jammed in there. It especially felt forced to be a part of Ruby’s character, which we only saw vaguely with her Grandmere in the first movie.
My only other qualm is that Giselle is never mentioned. Ruby has no guilt for the part she played in her sister’s complete erasing from history. Like Giselle was a truly awful human being, but Ruby’s a grown-ass woman now and really should be able to acknowledge the fact that she likely wronged Giselle even worse than she wronged Paul.
Anyway, good for Pearl and all that, right?
The post V.C. Andrews’ HIDDEN JEWEL: Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
March 30, 2021
V.C. Andrews’ ALL THAT GLITTERS – Lifetime Movie Review
I wasted time watching and reviewing both Lifetime adaptations of Ruby and Pearl in the Mist. Now I’m here to review Lifetime’s adaptation of All That Glitters, the third book in V.C. Andrews’ Landry series. After the first two instalments, I came to appreciate both lead actresses for their roles. I thought they managed to do a lot with a little. While I liked Beau in Ruby, he ended up playing the role of a good lay in Pearl in the Mist. But now Ruby’s looking after Beau’s baby on the swamp, and what is a single mom to do now? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s All That Glitters!
Some Notes Going InFor the life of me, I don’t remember much about my experience reading All That Glitters. I feel like I remember reading all of it but I have no knowledge of the Giselle plot and only memories of the scene where Ruby has sex with (HER BROTHER!) Paul, and she refers to the moment feeling like a bunch of horses running and thumping, which I thought was actually pretty decent writing, honestly?
Obviously, I was looking forward to seeing that moment on screen, hoping that it would it be messed up and weird, much like that very uncomfortable incest scene from Boardwalk Empire. Not that I’m like down with incest or anything. I just appreciate a good messed-up sex scene, okay?
A Return to the BayouMore stock footage bayou scenes and the bayou theme music take us back to Ruby’s new life as a single mom. Except, she’s not so single because Paul shows her his new fancy property called Cypress Woods (which will never not make me think of Cypress Hill). The property looks nothing like a fancy southern property and doesn’t look like the damn bayou at all. I mentioned in my Ruby review that the entire series was filmed in Victoria, which is great because Yay, Canada! and all, but also awful because all the bayou magic of the book is ruined in this dumb series for me.
JUST GIVE ME MY SOUTHERN ARCHITECTURE, LIFETIME! THAT’S ALL I ASKED FOR!Paul shows Ruby the house, which again, isn’t very southern-looking, and then takes her to the dining room table here he’s spelt MARRY ME, RUBY with rose petals. Ruby, of course, reminds him of the truth that they’re half-siblings, but the old teenage me that really liked the Ruby/Paul relationship still shipped the pair. Doesn’t help that the actor who plays Paul also does a pretty decent job of making him this devoted man who just wants to protect her. He even shows her their separate bedrooms so they don’t have to like, you know, bone and sin and make matters worse for themselves.
All they have to do is pretend to be man and wife. Ruby gets a nice house and a safe home for herself and Pearl. Inside, I was like, “Do it, Ruby. Don’t be dumb.”
Ruby also looks older, and I gotta applaud Lifetime on giving her just a bit of a sophisticated makeup look and some more sophisticated 50s-looking dresses to wear. She really does look a month older than she was in Pearl in the Mist! Like, it’s hard not to laugh at how they try to make everyone look more adult even though little time has passed.
That Shack LifeInstead, Ruby goes back to her Grandmere’s shack. She puts Pearl down in the tiniest basket in the universe on the dang dining room table and then Buster (the dude her Grandpere tried to sell her to) busts right on in and claims that he spend a $1000 bucks on her and still hasn’t got what he paid for. But like, didn’t Ruby leave that money behind? Surely Buster must have gotten that back after he came to and realized that Ruby was gone?
Needless to say, things get rapey, but Lifetime made Ruby smart and she takes her pot of gumbo and throws it into Buster’s face so she can grab the baby and escape. Buster grabs Ruby’s leg and she falls to the ground still holding the baby, but still manages to escape. It’s a pretty tense scene, but it takes Ruby all the way back to Cypress Woods.
In the morning, Paul finds her and Pearl sleeping on the bench in front of the property, which makes me wonder why she didn’t just go up to the door and knock? Like, they’re supposed to be in love with each other. Why the hell is she too afraid to go in? Did Lifetime really do this just so we could have the whole “handsome hero picks her up fireman-style” hero scene? Because that’s basically what it feels like here.
#SortaMarriedLifeRuby decides to accept Paul’s offer. The two marry and we get acquainted with Paul’s family. His sister, Jean, is lovely. His mother, Gladys, is the new bitch who gets to replace the now-dead Daphne (who dies later on in an off-screen horse accident). Lastly, his father, Octavious is just a rapist who doesn’t realize that he’s a rapist. You see, Ruby’s mother Gabrielle was just sO tAnTaLiZiNg that Octavious (a grown-ass man) just couldn’t help himself from boning a literal teenager.
“You really are just the spitting images of your mother,” he says to Ruby. “And she was an enchantress, you know!”
Paul does his best charm, telling Ruby that she’s really made their house a home, seducing an almost-kiss from Ruby. This happens a few times over the course of the movie, which really does kind of give one feels for a bit of incest. Ruby, at least, in the moment, manages to maintain reality, at least, until Giselle shows up.
A Wannabe Blair WaldorfGiselle makes her return by showing up at Cypress Woods without warning. She threatens to expose the truth of Ruby’s marriage for… reasons? Her threat doesn’t really go anywhere other than to remind Ruby that she’s still her bitchy older sister.
Then, when Beau comes back from France (having broken off his engagement with whatever Parisian debutante) and he decides to marry Giselle. Why? Because she uh, looks like Ruby and she’s the closest Beau can ever get to being with Ruby. Giselle reminds Ruby that if she’d just waited a bit longer that she’d be able to hook up with the real father of her child instead of her sad bro-marriage situation.
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll be envious of my life soon,” she tells Ruby.
Just wait. Oh, just wait.
It’s Bermuda Love Triangle Time!Ruby loses her cool over Giselle and Paul manages to calm her down and kiss her silly. Ruby gushes and says she wishes they could just be “other people”, so later in the night Paul comes in dressed as a soldier, calling himself “Colonel William Tate”. He asks Ruby out to dinner and provides her with a gown to wear. It’s kind of sweet? But not really what I was hoping for, really. After dinner, we cut to Ruby in a corset and yet another pair of ruffle panties. Paul just busts into the room and the two make out, finally consummating their sibling-marriage off-screen.
Which, for me, is a major letdown.
I wanted to see some torment and stuff, y’know? Some real dark stuff? Instead, we get the piano music and Ruby facing regret the next morning. She confronts Paul about it, saying they can’t do it again. But then Paul LITERALLY FUCKING GASLIGHTS her by saying that she must have just had a really great dream.
At this point, I was totes done with Paul. Like, Ruby obviously doesn’t buy into the lie, but just the fact that he’d even just brush aside her concern and pretend like they didn’t just commit incest is even grosser than the incest to me. If the story’s plot didn’t progress and they continued on, would he put on the soldier costume again? Would he force Ruby to continue playing fantasy just for his own benefit?
Ruby paints a pretty cringe painting of her and “Colonel William Tate” in the woods, but then Giselle calls with news of Daphne’s death. At the funeral, the dude Ruby was with complains about how destitute he is now because Daphne didn’t put him in the will. Ruby doesn’t really give much of a shit about this, though, because she finally gets to see Beau again!
Can I just add here that Ty Wood has a total cute babyface but is also weirdly sexy and charming at the same time? The duality of this man confuses me.And it’s a bit touching, but only because the actors do a decent job of playing long-lost lovers. (Though we really didn’t need that garbage flashback in Ruby’s old art room with the totes see-through lace curtains, Lifetime. Trust the actors!) We also get a scene of Beau meeting Pearl for the first time. And maybe it’s just the hormonal mom in me (because I’m totes on my period right now), but that was some touching shit, man.
“Is she mine?” Beau asks, referring to Pearl. It’s literally the most gutting part of the movie to me. (Again, because of my mom hormones. Nothing sexier than a dad who wants to be a good dad, yo.) The whole explanation about their parting was kind of silly, but Beau eventually explains himself and tells Ruby that he’s leased a nice fuck-pad in New Orleans that Giselle doesn’t know about. He tells Ruby to meet him there.
Bone TimeRuby tells Paul that she’s going to New Orleans to see some art dealers, when she’s really going to visit Beau. She lets her hair down and it looks bloody awful, sis. Like really bad. She’s got sex hair before she even gets the sexy time.
AN ABSOLUTE HOT MESS.We get our not-sexy dose of making out with underwear on, followed by that whole post-coital conversation with sheets strategically covering all the lewd stuff. Ruby claims she hates lying to Paul, but that they also made an agreement that they could bone other people if they wanted to, to which I’m like, SERIOUSLY RUBY?! Obviously Paul is a one-woman man.
Ruby then explains the whole brother aspect of her relationship with Paul, and Beau sees this as an opportunity to get Ruby back. Which it kind of is? But the way they go about fixing the problem is so ridiculous and stupid. Like all Ruby has to do is tell Paul the truth, which she plans on doing, that is, until she comes home to find Paul drunk. He gets a bit scary and then gets upset about it.
The SwitchLater, after Ruby decides that it’s best to stay with Paul because Giselle might spill the truth about them being siblings or something? Giselle has no real sway in Houma. How is she even a real threat?
Beau then calls with a notice that fate is trying to help them! Turns out he and Giselle went to some chateau where Giselle got stung by a mosquito and is now in a coma with a rare form of encephalitis. He says that Ruby can switch places with Giselle. Ruby says that this is crazy, but then she just goes along with it anyway, which enraged me because the obvious legal issues surrounding this are crazy, but this is also a V.C. Andrews story and this is kind of the whole point?
So I don’t reeeeeallly know what I was so mad about.
Paul strangely gives this plan the go-ahead, taking the vegetable Giselle at Cypress Woods. It made me feel kind of sorry for him all over again. Because he’s literally getting shafted, forced to take care of Giselle and getting nothing in return, I guess, except for the knowledge that Ruby’s apparently happy now?
Except she’s not. Not entirely. Ruby goes back to New Orleans to live with Beau in her father’s mansion, but she has to pretend to be Giselle. Which she does a great job at! I’m not even kidding. Lifetime does the whole Giselle makeup look on the Ruby actress, and the Ruby actress does her best Giselle impression and it actually was really difficult to tell if they were just using the Giselle actress.
Blair Waldorf 3.0It doesn’t many social events for Ruby to get a feel for her sister’s ways. As Giselle rots away in the bayou, Ruby frolics at all the high society parties and eventually crashes into her old friend Abby. You know, her bi-racial roomie from the boarding school? I’ve no idea why she’s at this party. In fact, we don’t even get to catch up on any of what she’s been up to all this time, because she confronts Ruby (thinking she’s actually Giselle). But THEN she finally catches Ruby apologize for something and she realizes the truth.
The two rekindle their friendship and Ruby spills the truth that she’s actually posing as her sister. To be honest, it shocks me a bit that Abby is cool with this. Abby always seemed like a pretty moral person, but because it’s Ruby she somehow gets a pass for doing something really shitty?
Ruby eventually plays the Giselle role so well that she starts to like it. Honestly, it would have been nice to have seen a bit more of the actress who plays Ruby struggle with this aspect, because she plays it well. But this is Lifetime, where plot matters more than anything, so a true character drama aficinado like me just has to make do with the couple of occasions where Ruby blurts out that she understands what power is as a wealthy woman.
I especially liked the part when, after Giselle’s illness worsens and Ruby goes to visit and give her sister all her good luck charms, Ruby finally understands Giselle. “The world was a great playground to you,” she says, “and anyone that threatened it was to be destroyed.”
“Treating people as you do, it makes me feel in charge. And I’m scared because I’m getting really good at it. I’m starting to like it.”
Ruby Dumas
Ruby paints her angst away, and then Bruce (the dude Daphne was banging) comes back into the picture begging for money again. He takes notice of the paintings and clues in on the fact that the person he believes is Giselle IS actually Ruby. He claims to spill the beans but then Ruby just chases him out, claiming RAPE, even though there was no rape. Like what is the point of this? Is it so show Ruby’s viciousness? Or to show that Ruby can now defend herself? I know it’s the former but I kind of feel like it’s the latter?
Abby totes forgives it all, and even though Ruby is doing a truly awful thing.
The Death of Blair Waldorf 2.0Paul’s sister calls to tell Giselle about Ruby’s death, but to Ruby it’s about Giselle’s death. But to Ruby it’s more about Ruby’s death. This bums out because after all the effort Lifetime went to try to pretend that Ruby and Giselle had some kind of connection, it’s shitty that once Giselle dies that Ruby makes the situation all about herself.
I’M GOING TO MY OWN FUNERAL! she sobs before the scene cuts straight to Paul mourning the death of Ruby, because at this point he believes that Giselle is actually Ruby.
Ruby apologizes to her sister because she “didn’t realize that it was going to end this way”. She hates that everyone’s crying over HER death. Meanwhile, I, the viewer, and am very disgusted by the fact that literally no one will ever mourn Giselle’s actual death. Giselle will never have a funeral. Like sure, Giselle was a shitty person, but she deserves a proper death, yo.
Then Paul disappears and Ruby leads the search party into the “bayou” to find Paul dead in the water.
The Whole Custody Battle ClicheRuby sobs her way into the next morning, where she’s laying in her fancy bed and Beau brings in a literal 3-year-old Pearl to make Ruby feel better. I don’t know why, but in all the toddler Pearl scenes, Lifetime kept dubbing in baby noises. Why the fuck did they do that? In this particular scene, Pearl should be able to talk and say stuff, but she’s LAUGHING LIKE AN INFANT and it’s super messed up.
Paul’s sister then comes to break the news that Pearl needs to go and live with Gladys and Octavious Tate, who everyone believes are Pearl’s rightful guardians. It’s super enraging that Ruby and Beau never thought this shit through. The lawyers then take Pearl away in a not-so-great but still upsetting scene, because again, I’m a mom and watching a kid get ripped away from their parents is uh, not the most thing in the world to see, even in shitty Lifetime rendition.
Beau says they can figure things out, but Ruby vows to start telling the truth. They get a lawyer to help sort things out but because Ruby has no birth records and they have literally no way to prove that Ruby is Ruby, they’re kind of fucked, yo. So they head over to “bayou court” to sort things out, V.C. Andrews style. Nobody buys anything that Ruby or Beau say, but then Ruby begs her lawyer to call Octavious Child-Rapist Tate to the stands.
Ruby tells her to question him about why it wasn’t right for Paul and Ruby to marry. Claiming that “he cannot separate another mother from her child”, he confesses to “giving into his desires”, or rather, RAPING A TEENAGER. The story he spins is over the guilt he has of raising Paul as his son and you know, not of the rape.
The judge immediately dismissed the case nobody persecutes Octavious for being a rapist, dude. It’s fucked, but hey, at least Ruby and Beau get Pearl back, right? RIGHT?!
The End?Cut to a few years later when Pearl, who is now older and Lifetime no longer dubs over with baby babble, walks into Ruby’s art studio and looks through Ruby’s cheap-looking collection of witchy jewelry from Etsy. A realistically-pregnant Ruby then enters the room and scolds her for looking at MOMMY’S THINGS, but Pearl relents that she can’t help it because they look so pretty.
Then Beau enters and they have a cheesetastic family moment where Pearl asks to rub Ruby’s belly to “say hi to the boys”, meaning that we’ve got another set of twins to separate in the distant future.
I can hardly wait!
My Final ThoughtsThis was easily the best movie of the three so far. I feel like our four key actors all got a good feel of their characters by this point, and they all managed to work with the script and flesh them out JUST enough for me to enjoy the ride without getting too snarky.
I appreciated Ruby’s struggle with becoming her sister. The whole sister-switch plot was pretty decently executed, you know, for being a Lifetime movie. Fortunately, they managed to get an actress good enough to kind of keep things campy while also being able to play things out just enough to keep the emotion strong.
Last on the roster, we’ve got Hidden Jewel, which I will be recapping shortly.
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V.C. Andrews’ ALL THAT GLITTERS: Lifetime Movie Review
I wasted time watching and reviewing both Lifetime adaptations of Ruby and Pearl in the Mist. Now I’m here to review Lifetime’s adaptation of All That Glitters, the third book in V.C. Andrews’ Landry series. After the first two instalments, I came to appreciate both lead actresses for their roles. I thought they managed to do a lot with a little. While I liked Beau in Ruby, he ended up playing the role of a good lay in Pearl in the Mist. But now Ruby’s looking after Beau’s baby on the swamp, and what is a single mom to do now? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s All That Glitters!
Some Notes Going InFor the life of me, I don’t remember much about my experience reading All That Glitters. I feel like I remember reading all of it but I have no knowledge of the Giselle plot and only memories of the scene where Ruby has sex with (HER BROTHER!) Paul, and she refers to the moment feeling like a bunch of horses running and thumping, which I thought was actually pretty decent writing, honestly?
Obviously, I was looking forward to seeing that moment on screen, hoping that it would it be messed up and weird, much like that very uncomfortable incest scene from Boardwalk Empire. Not that I’m like down with incest or anything. I just appreciate a good messed-up sex scene, okay?
A Return to the BayouMore stock footage bayou scenes and the bayou theme music take us back to Ruby’s new life as a single mom. Except, she’s not so single because Paul shows her his new fancy property called Cypress Woods (which will never not make me think of Cypress Hill). The property looks nothing like a fancy southern property and doesn’t look like the damn bayou at all. I mentioned in my Ruby review that the entire series was filmed in Victoria, which is great because Yay, Canada! and all, but also awful because all the bayou magic of the book is ruined in this dumb series for me.
JUST GIVE ME MY SOUTHERN ARCHITECTURE, LIFETIME! THAT’S ALL I ASKED FOR!Paul shows Ruby the house, which again, isn’t very southern-looking, and then takes her to the dining room table here he’s spelt MARRY ME, RUBY with rose petals. Ruby, of course, reminds him of the truth that they’re half-siblings, but the old teenage me that really liked the Ruby/Paul relationship still shipped the pair. Doesn’t help that the actor who plays Paul also does a pretty decent job of making him this devoted man who just wants to protect her. He even shows her their separate bedrooms so they don’t have to like, you know, bone and sin and make matters worse for themselves.
All they have to do is pretend to be man and wife. Ruby gets a nice house and a safe home for herself and Pearl. Inside, I was like, “Do it, Ruby. Don’t be dumb.”
Ruby also looks older, and I gotta applaud Lifetime on giving her just a bit of a sophisticated makeup look and some more sophisticated 50s-looking dresses to wear. She really does look a month older than she was in Pearl in the Mist! Like, it’s hard not to laugh at how they try to make everyone look more adult even though little time has passed.
That Shack LifeInstead, Ruby goes back to her Grandmere’s shack. She puts Pearl down in the tiniest basket in the universe on the dang dining room table and then Buster (the dude her Grandpere tried to sell her to) busts right on in and claims that he spend a $1000 bucks on her and still hasn’t got what he paid for. But like, didn’t Ruby leave that money behind? Surely Buster must have gotten that back after he came to and realized that Ruby was gone?
Needless to say, things get rapey, but Lifetime made Ruby smart and she takes her pot of gumbo and throws it into Buster’s face so she can grab the baby and escape. Buster grabs Ruby’s leg and she falls to the ground still holding the baby, but still manages to escape. It’s a pretty tense scene, but it takes Ruby all the way back to Cypress Woods.
In the morning, Paul finds her and Pearl sleeping on the bench in front of the property, which makes me wonder why she didn’t just go up to the door and knock? Like, they’re supposed to be in love with each other. Why the hell is she too afraid to go in? Did Lifetime really do this just so we could have the whole “handsome hero picks her up fireman-style” hero scene? Because that’s basically what it feels like here.
#SortaMarriedLifeRuby decides to accept Paul’s offer. The two marry and we get acquainted with Paul’s family. His sister, Jean, is lovely. His mother, Gladys, is the new bitch who gets to replace the now-dead Daphne (who dies later on in an off-screen horse accident). Lastly, his father, Octavious is just a rapist who doesn’t realize that he’s a rapist. You see, Ruby’s mother Gabrielle was just sO tAnTaLiZiNg that Octavious (a grown-ass man) just couldn’t help himself from boning a literal teenager.
“You really are just the spitting images of your mother,” he says to Ruby. “And she was an enchantress, you know!”
Paul does his best charm, telling Ruby that she’s really made their house a home, seducing an almost-kiss from Ruby. This happens a few times over the course of the movie, which really does kind of give one feels for a bit of incest. Ruby, at least, in the moment, manages to maintain reality, at least, until Giselle shows up.
A Wannabe Blair WaldorfGiselle makes her return by showing up at Cypress Woods without warning. She threatens to expose the truth of Ruby’s marriage for… reasons? Her threat doesn’t really go anywhere other than to remind Ruby that she’s still her bitchy older sister.
Then, when Beau comes back from France (having broken off his engagement with whatever Parisian debutante) and he decides to marry Giselle. Why? Because she uh, looks like Ruby and she’s the closest Beau can ever get to being with Ruby. Giselle reminds Ruby that if she’d just waited a bit longer that she’d be able to hook up with the real father of her child instead of her sad bro-marriage situation.
“I’ve got a feeling you’ll be envious of my life soon,” she tells Ruby.
Just wait. Oh, just wait.
It’s Bermuda Love Triangle Time!Ruby loses her cool over Giselle and Paul manages to calm her down and kiss her silly. Ruby gushes and says she wishes they could just be “other people”, so later in the night Paul comes in dressed as a soldier, calling himself “Colonel William Tate”. He asks Ruby out to dinner and provides her with a gown to wear. It’s kind of sweet? But not really what I was hoping for, really. After dinner, we cut to Ruby in a corset and yet another pair of ruffle panties. Paul just busts into the room and the two make out, finally consummating their sibling-marriage off-screen.
Which, for me, is a major letdown.
I wanted to see some torment and stuff, y’know? Some real dark stuff? Instead, we get the piano music and Ruby facing regret the next morning. She confronts Paul about it, saying they can’t do it again. But then Paul LITERALLY FUCKING GASLIGHTS her by saying that she must have just had a really great dream.
At this point, I was totes done with Paul. Like, Ruby obviously doesn’t buy into the lie, but just the fact that he’d even just brush aside her concern and pretend like they didn’t just commit incest is even grosser than the incest to me. If the story’s plot didn’t progress and they continued on, would he put on the soldier costume again? Would he force Ruby to continue playing fantasy just for his own benefit?
Ruby paints a pretty cringe painting of her and “Colonel William Tate” in the woods, but then Giselle calls with news of Daphne’s death. At the funeral, the dude Ruby was with complains about how destitute he is now because Daphne didn’t put him in the will. Ruby doesn’t really give much of a shit about this, though, because she finally gets to see Beau again!
Can I just add here that Ty Wood has a total cute babyface but is also weirdly sexy and charming at the same time? The duality of this man confuses me.And it’s a bit touching, but only because the actors do a decent job of playing long-lost lovers. (Though we really didn’t need that garbage flashback in Ruby’s old art room with the totes see-through lace curtains, Lifetime. Trust the actors!) We also get a scene of Beau meeting Pearl for the first time. And maybe it’s just the hormonal mom in me (because I’m totes on my period right now), but that was some touching shit, man.
“Is she mine?” Beau asks, referring to Pearl. It’s literally the most gutting part of the movie to me. (Again, because of my mom hormones. Nothing sexier than a dad who wants to be a good dad, yo.) The whole explanation about their parting was kind of silly, but Beau eventually explains himself and tells Ruby that he’s leased a nice fuck-pad in New Orleans that Giselle doesn’t know about. He tells Ruby to meet him there.
Bone TimeRuby tells Paul that she’s going to New Orleans to see some art dealers, when she’s really going to visit Beau. She lets her hair down and it looks bloody awful, sis. Like really bad. She’s got sex hair before she even gets the sexy time.
AN ABSOLUTE HOT MESS.We get our not-sexy dose of making out with underwear on, followed by that whole post-coital conversation with sheets strategically covering all the lewd stuff. Ruby claims she hates lying to Paul, but that they also made an agreement that they could bone other people if they wanted to, to which I’m like, SERIOUSLY RUBY?! Obviously Paul is a one-woman man.
Ruby then explains the whole brother aspect of her relationship with Paul, and Beau sees this as an opportunity to get Ruby back. Which it kind of is? But the way they go about fixing the problem is so ridiculous and stupid. Like all Ruby has to do is tell Paul the truth, which she plans on doing, that is, until she comes home to find Paul drunk. He gets a bit scary and then gets upset about it.
The SwitchLater, after Ruby decides that it’s best to stay with Paul because Giselle might spill the truth about them being siblings or something? Giselle has no real sway in Houma. How is she even a real threat?
Beau then calls with a notice that fate is trying to help them! Turns out he and Giselle went to some chateau where Giselle got stung by a mosquito and is now in a coma with a rare form of encephalitis. He says that Ruby can switch places with Giselle. Ruby says that this is crazy, but then she just goes along with it anyway, which enraged me because the obvious legal issues surrounding this are crazy, but this is also a V.C. Andrews story and this is kind of the whole point?
So I don’t reeeeeallly know what I was so mad about.
Paul strangely gives this plan the go-ahead, taking the vegetable Giselle at Cypress Woods. It made me feel kind of sorry for him all over again. Because he’s literally getting shafted, forced to take care of Giselle and getting nothing in return, I guess, except for the knowledge that Ruby’s apparently happy now?
Except she’s not. Not entirely. Ruby goes back to New Orleans to live with Beau in her father’s mansion, but she has to pretend to be Giselle. Which she does a great job at! I’m not even kidding. Lifetime does the whole Giselle makeup look on the Ruby actress, and the Ruby actress does her best Giselle impression and it actually was really difficult to tell if they were just using the Giselle actress.
Blair Waldorf 3.0It doesn’t many social events for Ruby to get a feel for her sister’s ways. As Giselle rots away in the bayou, Ruby frolics at all the high society parties and eventually crashes into her old friend Abby. You know, her bi-racial roomie from the boarding school? I’ve no idea why she’s at this party. In fact, we don’t even get to catch up on any of what she’s been up to all this time, because she confronts Ruby (thinking she’s actually Giselle). But THEN she finally catches Ruby apologize for something and she realizes the truth.
The two rekindle their friendship and Ruby spills the truth that she’s actually posing as her sister. To be honest, it shocks me a bit that Abby is cool with this. Abby always seemed like a pretty moral person, but because it’s Ruby she somehow gets a pass for doing something really shitty?
Ruby eventually plays the Giselle role so well that she starts to like it. Honestly, it would have been nice to have seen a bit more of the actress who plays Ruby struggle with this aspect, because she plays it well. But this is Lifetime, where plot matters more than anything, so a true character drama aficinado like me just has to make do with the couple of occasions where Ruby blurts out that she understands what power is as a wealthy woman.
I especially liked the part when, after Giselle’s illness worsens and Ruby goes to visit and give her sister all her good luck charms, Ruby finally understands Giselle. “The world was a great playground to you,” she says, “and anyone that threatened it was to be destroyed.”
“Treating people as you do, it makes me feel in charge. And I’m scared because I’m getting really good at it. I’m starting to like it.”
Ruby Dumas
Ruby paints her angst away, and then Bruce (the dude Daphne was banging) comes back into the picture begging for money again. He takes notice of the paintings and clues in on the fact that the person he believes is Giselle IS actually Ruby. He claims to spill the beans but then Ruby just chases him out, claiming RAPE, even though there was no rape. Like what is the point of this? Is it so show Ruby’s viciousness? Or to show that Ruby can now defend herself? I know it’s the former but I kind of feel like it’s the latter?
Abby totes forgives it all, and even though Ruby is doing a truly awful thing.
The Death of Blair Waldorf 2.0Paul’s sister calls to tell Giselle about Ruby’s death, but to Ruby it’s about Giselle’s death. But to Ruby it’s more about Ruby’s death. This bums out because after all the effort Lifetime went to try to pretend that Ruby and Giselle had some kind of connection, it’s shitty that once Giselle dies that Ruby makes the situation all about herself.
I’M GOING TO MY OWN FUNERAL! she sobs before the scene cuts straight to Paul mourning the death of Ruby, because at this point he believes that Giselle is actually Ruby.
Ruby apologizes to her sister because she “didn’t realize that it was going to end this way”. She hates that everyone’s crying over HER death. Meanwhile, I, the viewer, and am very disgusted by the fact that literally no one will ever mourn Giselle’s actual death. Giselle will never have a funeral. Like sure, Giselle was a shitty person, but she deserves a proper death, yo.
Then Paul disappears and Ruby leads the search party into the “bayou” to find Paul dead in the water.
The Whole Custody Battle ClicheRuby sobs her way into the next morning, where she’s laying in her fancy bed and Beau brings in a literal 3-year-old Pearl to make Ruby feel better. I don’t know why, but in all the toddler Pearl scenes, Lifetime kept dubbing in baby noises. Why the fuck did they do that? In this particular scene, Pearl should be able to talk and say stuff, but she’s LAUGHING LIKE AN INFANT and it’s super messed up.
Paul’s sister then comes to break the news that Pearl needs to go and live with Gladys and Octavious Tate, who everyone believes are Pearl’s rightful guardians. It’s super enraging that Ruby and Beau never thought this shit through. The lawyers then take Pearl away in a not-so-great but still upsetting scene, because again, I’m a mom and watching a kid get ripped away from their parents is uh, not the most thing in the world to see, even in shitty Lifetime rendition.
Beau says they can figure things out, but Ruby vows to start telling the truth. They get a lawyer to help sort things out but because Ruby has no birth records and they have literally no way to prove that Ruby is Ruby, they’re kind of fucked, yo. So they head over to “bayou court” to sort things out, V.C. Andrews style. Nobody buys anything that Ruby or Beau say, but then Ruby begs her lawyer to call Octavious Child-Rapist Tate to the stands.
Ruby tells her to question him about why it wasn’t right for Paul and Ruby to marry. Claiming that “he cannot separate another mother from her child”, he confesses to “giving into his desires”, or rather, RAPING A TEENAGER. The story he spins is over the guilt he has of raising Paul as his son and you know, not of the rape.
The judge immediately dismissed the case nobody persecutes Octavious for being a rapist, dude. It’s fucked, but hey, at least Ruby and Beau get Pearl back, right? RIGHT?!
The End?Cut to a few years later when Pearl, who is now older and Lifetime no longer dubs over with baby babble, walks into Ruby’s art studio and looks through Ruby’s cheap-looking collection of witchy jewelry from Etsy. A realistically-pregnant Ruby then enters the room and scolds her for looking at MOMMY’S THINGS, but Pearl relents that she can’t help it because they look so pretty.
Then Beau enters and they have a cheesetastic family moment where Pearl asks to rub Ruby’s belly to “say hi to the boys”, meaning that we’ve got another set of twins to separate in the distant future.
I can hardly wait!
My Final ThoughtsThis was easily the best movie of the three so far. I feel like our four key actors all got a good feel of their characters by this point, and they all managed to work with the script and flesh them out JUST enough for me to enjoy the ride without getting too snarky.
I appreciated Ruby’s struggle with becoming her sister. The whole sister-switch plot was pretty decently executed, you know, for being a Lifetime movie. Fortunately, they managed to get an actress good enough to kind of keep things campy while also being able to play things out just enough to keep the emotion strong.
Last on the roster, we’ve got Hidden Jewel, which I will be recapping shortly.
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I Was a Teenage Wannabe Mommy Blogger
Back in high school, I used to read Dooce excessively. Not quite to the point of understanding all the stuff she was saying (because her writing style can be VERY long-winded and convoluted), but more so out of infatuation. Her site was something to behold. She kept people’s attention. She took lovely pictures of her lovely little home. I wanted that life and dreamed of it one day being mine.
I blogged daily back in the early 00s. It was what teenagers (and mainly girls) did online, exposing our deepest selves to the deepest voids of the internet. Reflecting back, I realize how foolish it was. Nobody really read my teen angst ramblings. I often forced my friends to read. They often feigned interest but never stuck around for the daily deluge of my roller coaster of insecurity and grandiose sense of self.
In my later years of high school, I started sharing my fiction online. People seemed more interested in reading the fiction, so I kept posting more and more. Granted, none of my stories were really all that good, but I guess my work work still showed a vein talent beneath the surface. So I kept writing. I kept sharing it. Then I realized that sharing it for free with the hopes that people would flock to it was the way to really build a writing career.
Real Life Sucks Losers DryIn college, when I started dating my now-husband (named Jon, just like Dooce’s then-husband), my need to share my life dried out. It got reeeeal crispy. There was no longer any drama, any angst. The honeymoon period of my relationship pulled me so quickly into reality that I couldn’t escape back into the Internet. I had nothing to tell strangers because I was living out real-life shit. Experiencing it for once.
At one point I remember that having a relationship would give me SO MUCH FODDER for blogs, but none of what I experienced was anything I wanted to share. Because it was mine. Nobody else needed to know about it other than Jon and myself. We were happy. We were thriving.
At one point I DO recall us having a very minor fight when he wanted to practice with his band instead of hanging out with me, and I blew things way out of proportion thinking, “Oh, this is the part where our relationship gets rocky and I’ll have GOOD stuff to blog about!”
But then I went to work and the fight didn’t mean anything when he came over the next day. We made up and I had no reason to write about it.
Blogging was no longer that coping mechanism to feel like a cool and functional person in reality.
The Perfect LifeFlash forward to now, where my guilty pleasure is reading about Dooce on r/BlogSnarkUncensored, where there’s always a week by week discussion on, uhhhhhh, whatever is going on with Dooce’s life. She and her husband separated years ago, and then when the Instagram ideal became the main way of sharing one’s life online with strangers, it seemed the whole trend of “mommy blogging” was on the decline.
Dooce’s current status is bizarre and strange and many hate-followers speculate that she’ll use her remaining influence to inevitably turn her entire website into an affiliate marketing machine. WHICH IS WHAT ALL BLOGS ARE FOR NOW, ARE THEY NOT?
Well, now I’m a mom myself with a husband named Jon, just like Dooce was at one point. I have achieved the dream but was unable to properly write about it! Because I was writing fiction instead. And my life is kind of boring. I don’t do much. I work retail and refuse to write about it. Dooce taught me not to do that.
I had two kids but refuse to write about them because they need privacy and stuff and I hate talking mom stuff all the damn time. I already LIVE that much redundancy, why would I want to RELIVE it by writing about it?
I write fiction but I feel weird writing about writing fiction because I don’t know how to tell people to write well. I just want you to read the fiction I write.
BUT!I’ve tried to find enough recipes online and stumbled over “mom recipe blogs” blogs so cluttered with ads and affiliate links that the site practically breaks upon my visit. I’m so fucking done with this bullshit trend of people (mainly women) making a “side income” online by peddling a bunch of shit on Amazon.
I miss mom blogs. I miss blogs in general, when people would share the most mundane aspects of their lives. If there was anything to take away from that pretty crappy Netflix docu-series on the disappearance of Elisa Lam, it was seeing the impact that her Tumblr blog had with strangers online. Stories matter to people, nomatter how mundne.
My personal blogs might never get many hits, but they do get the most comments from readers. I do wish that I COULD blog more about my personal life, but honestly, it’s still pretty lame.
I work retail and would never speak ill of my job.
I do mom stuff but I’m a pretty mediocre mom.
I love my husband but there is truly nothing more awful than listening to strangers gush online about how amazing and handsome and wonderful their spouses are.
I also have a lot of self-esteem issues and anxiety about all kinds of stuff, which is worthy blog fodder, right? That’s the real meat, right? I should blog about that more often, right?
Getting More PersonalSo I plan on it. Blogging more about me. Because there’s a generation of people online who I think are still craving for that kind of content. It’s harder to find now beneath the layers of sponsored content and MLM huns and filtered lifestyles, but people still desire to read real thoughts and feelings.
That’s why we all read fiction, I think. That’s why I prefer to spend much of my free time pretending to be somebody else. I want to use my story to tell other stories. I want to use my story to branch out and build metaphors and understand other people’s stories.
I’m 34 now, and the older I get, the more I realize little nuggets about myself that I never paid much attention to. And I should probably write some of them down.
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March 24, 2021
V.C. Andrews’ PEARL IN THE MIST – Lifetime Movie Review
So, I didn’t think the Lifetime adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ Ruby was all that bad, honestly. I liked the actresses who play the series’ twins, and I didn’t hate Beau. In this next movie, we follow Ruby and Giselle off to their private boarding school. What random 2nd book irrelevant antics will befall them? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ Pearl in the Mist.
Some Notes Going InI actually haven’t had the chance to read Pearl in the Mist yet. Why, you might ask? Well, I discovered V.C. Andrews at the thrift store in the early aughts, and at the time the shelves would ALWAYS be flooded with used copies of V.C. Andrews books , but never the ones you actually needed to read in order. I found my copy of Ruby but could never get my hands on the second book in the series. Finally, I caved and signed out a copy of All that Glitters (the third book) from the library. I assumed that nothing major had happened, but colour me surprised.
Some stuff of relevance happens, though of course much of the series from this point isn’t entirely fresh in my memory.
Off to SchoolWe start off with Ruby and Giselle setting off for the Greenwood School for Girls. Ruby, now the apple of her Daddy’s eye, gains some extra scorn points from the now paralysed Giselle. Once at the dorm, Giselle finds the first unsuspecting girl to make her slave, because she’s paralysed and uses this to her advantage. I guess, go her?
We also meet Mrs. Penny, the most amazing dorm mother any girl could ever ask for. She’s GIDDY AF in every scene she bursts into, and I am all for that shit.
Next up is orientation, run by the stern Mrs. Ironwood, who says that the school will not tolerate alcohol or drugs or promiscuity at all. Giselle complains of this later with the other girls in the dorm, when a new girl, Abby, walks in late. Still without a roomie, Ruby latches onto Abby, complimenting her on her, uh, tanned skin.
Abby: *awkward* I guess I tan easily.
Ruby: I burn easily. Redhead, you know?
And I was like, oooookay, we’re going there. Turns out that Greenwood treats mixed-race kids (or “half-breeds”, as Abby refers to herself) the same way the British Monarchy treats Meghan Markle, and somehow the entire school — including Ruby, who befriended many black people on the bayou — is colour-blind just enough to think that Abby spent her entire summer on the beach? I don’t buy that obvious non-canonical character ignorance just to fulfil a plot point, but FINE LIFETIME.
Abby eventually spills her mixed-race beans to Ruby, who gets all Justin Trudeau about it by stating, “IT IS 1962, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” as if that’s gonna stop obvious future plot developments from happening.
SPOILER: IT WON’TCut to art class, where Miss Stevens, the art teacher with a suspiciously not-early 1960s pixie cut, gets the girls to paint a boot and praises Ruby on her talent. We don’t get the chance to appreciate Miss Stevens for long, though, because Mrs. Penny arrives to pull Ruby off to Mrs. Ironwood’s office to get told off for being a promiscuous Cajun girl.
Ruby cries in some far-off part of campus, where she and Abby discuss both being “outsiders”. Then a sexy groundskeeper confronts them for being there, saying that they can’t be around him, or on the grounds after dark. They admire his muscles, and Ruby looks him over particularly lustily.
Later, she eye-fucks him again when the girls from the dorm head to the house of Greenwood’s most charitable donor, Mrs. Clairborne. Once inside, Ruby takes quick notice of the fact that all the clocks in the house are stuck at 5:02PM.
The Sexy Piano-Playing Blind GuyMrs. Clairborne proves herself quite the stick in the mud. None of the girls seem to enjoy their visit, save for Ruby, who delights when Mrs. Clairborne allows her to wander off and look at her oRiGiNaL VanGogh painting. Ruby then hears piano music playing, and she wanders upstairs to find a Ben Shapiro playing his best Edward Cullen angsty piano in a room all by himself. His name’s actually Louis Clairborne, and he’s the grandson of Mrs. Clairborne (and nephew of Mrs. Ironwood!). To me, just’s just got that Ben Shaprio jawline and matter-of-fact obnoxious AF way of speaking.
He’s also blind, which he exposits to Ruby and to the viewers in case we didn’t understand why his stare was so blank in the first place. The two get acquainted, but then Louis sends her off right quick.
Later, when returning to the dorm, Ruby laments how fun it was to meet Louis, which sends Mrs. Penny into rightful hysterics that Ruby shouldn’t have gone off or talked to him at all. On account of THE TRAGEDY!!!!!
The girls egg Mrs. Penny on, and she eventually lets slip that the Mrs. Clairborne’s daughter and son-in-law died. Giselle suggests that they were murdered.
Mrs. Penny: What happened in is the Clairborne’s business and not for us to gossip about. That poor boy Louis was left an orphan and blind from his grief.
Abby: But…isn’t that gossip, Mrs. Penny?
Mrs. Penny:
The “Clairborne Secret”Back in the dorm, Ruby dries her already dry hair in front of the window while sexy groundskeeper Buck watches her through the window. Giselle overhears Ruby and Abby speculating what the “Clairbone Secret” is. Abby mentions that she doesn’t mind not knowing so long as nobody knows that she’s Meghan Markle in disguise. Giselle wants to trade secrets, but Abby keeps her cards close to the vest.
Later, Ruby paints with Miss Stevens, but then goes on to eyefuck Groundskeeper Buck. Miss Stevens catches her and Ruby suggests Buck is too old and that Miss Stevens should date him. But Buck isn’t actually Miss Stevens’ type, which Ruby fails to catch onto. No matter, because Miss Stevens knows what the “Clairborne Secret” is.
FLASHBACK TIME!Turns out Louis Clairborne’s mother was having an affair with a much younger man. His father caught her in the act and ultimately ended up smothering her with a pillow. She didn’t put up much of a fight and took like 5 seconds to die and then the father shot himself, all while Louis was watching. The shock sent him right into a coma. Then, when he woke up, he was blind.
The next day, Mrs. Penny comes in to break news that Ruby has been invited back to the Clairborne house. There, she has dinner with Louis and his grandmother. Later, she’s back with him in the piano room, letting him play all his “guitar guy at the party” moves on her, but, you know, with a piano. He plays all the classics like “Chopsticks” and “Moonlight Sonata”.
Ruby quickly gets WAP and leans her head on Louis’ shoulder. This catches Louis off-guard and Ruby’s like, OH, I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE I LAID MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER! Louis admits that he’s never been alone with a girl and Ruby lets him touch her face. Then Ruby gets the great idea to let him kiss her but she literally doesn’t lead him or give him any idea where her face is. So when he leans in and misses, Ruby has the absolute gall to laugh at him.
“Don’t be so stiff,” she says, though Louis is rightfully hurt and also kind of over-reacts by spinning around and storming off.
Giselle’s WrathBeau comes to visit and they head off to make out in a barn. Beau stops her and gets all asshole about it: “Maybe we should stop because I know where this is going, or rather, where it’s NOT GOING.”
Ruby unbuttons her shirt and claims that they’ve waited long enough. Then, later on, she goes to the dance with the nearby boy’s school. Before the party starts, Giselle gives Abby a flower for her hair, claiming that they want her to be “queen of the fall mixer”.
Sodas are popped. Girls arrive in dresses that do their best attempt at pretending to wear early 1960s dresses while obviously wearing fast fashion polyester-lined dresses made by low-paid garment workers in China. Ruby flirts with Buck (to be polite, she claims), but he tells her that he can’t talk to her.
Boys pick girls to dance, but not Abby. The entire night, boys go out of their way to avoid her. Finally, Ruby snaps, but then Giselle takes the mic and announces Abby as the school’s first “half-breed fall mixer queen”. Abby takes the stage and defends herself, claiming to be too good to slap Giselle in the face. Which she is. Ruby, however, pushes Giselle out of her fucking wheelchair like a savage.
Like, girl, just tone it back a bit. Her disability has nothing to do with her bitchiness. Except that it kind of does? Because of Ruby? Right?
Least Abby saved face by getting out of there without resorting to violence.
Secrets RevealedDespite being “put on lockdown” over the dance incident, Ruby is permitted to go and visit Louis again. Apparently, he’s getting his eyesight back! Ruby head on over in the most amazing dress over, and the two hit it off before going to Louis’ room at Ruby’s request.
Louis has a massive painting of his mother in his room, and he says that his mother used to lay with him in bed and hold his hand at night. He then lays down and invites Ruby to do so as well.
“I want you to know how it was with us,” he says, explaining that she would take his hand and press it to her chest, and then she’d put her hand BETWEEN HIS FUCKING LEGS and ON HER BREASTS and that one night his father found them like that. He’d cry every night after that because he was scared, but his dad thought that Louis was crying for his mother so he whooped him silly with a belt.
Then Louis’ mother found another boy and Louis grew upset. Then the murder stuff happened and I was like HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL but you know, this is V.C. Andrews stuff, right? That’s the point.
A Death in the FamilyLike many V.C. Andrews fathers before him, Pierre Dumas dies of a sudden heart attack and Ruby and Giselle get sent back home. Daphne takes the family reins, telling the girls they still both have their inheritance but that neither of them will be receiving any of the money until they’re 21. She expects both girls to behave themselves. Ruby asks if Daphne has told Uncle Jean about Pierre.
Daphne hasn’t, but has clearly taken to boning Pierre’s business partner, Bruce.
Ruby heads back to the mental hospital, shocked to find that Daphne has stopped paying for his private room. Now jammed in a ward with several other patients, Jean is worn and dishevelled, but his messy hair looks a lot sexier than his old pomade-buried hair, but maybe that’s just me. Ruby breaks the news of Pierre’s death and Jean obviously doesn’t react well. Like what the hell did you expect, Ruby?
Anyway, Ruby heads back home to confront Daphne, but Daphne obviously doesn’t give a shit. She stands up firm and tells Ruby that she can’t attend the funeral, and it’s at this point in the movie where the flaws in the Lifetime makeup department start to become quite obvious.
Like Daphne’s lipstick really could use a reapplication. Often times, Giselle’s lipstick is quite worn. And honestly, considering that there’s a scene in the first movie where Giselle shows Ruby how to blot her lipstick properly, you’d imagine her lips would be flawless but Giselle’s lipstick could always use a fucking touchup and she never gets it.
There’s a Whore in This HouseRuby spends one more night at home, but it’s a sad one, which is made obvious when the camera focuses on his sad gargoyle on the grounds that I’ve seen for like the 12th time in this series now.
Beau comes into her room and Ruby’s donning a sexy little negligee with ruffle panties that looks nothing like any of the billowy negligees featured on Mad Men. She tells Beau to lock the door because she “needs something nice to happen”, and so the two have passionate sex in front of the fire, which is kind of sad that that’s all Beau has become in this movie, is a good hard D.
Back at school, Ruby still has a WAP for Buck, who avoids her for like the 14th time. Then Ruby’s back at the Clairborne house with Louis while he’s playing a piano. He’s apparently started seeing a psychiatrist, who claims that he’s getting his sight back because he finally has somebody he can trust. Ruby admits that she has a boyfriend, but Louis says he knew all along and the two are suddenly just totes friends who never had any tension.
With that plot point out of the way, Ruby is dragged back to Mrs. Ironwood’s office. Mrs. Ironwood gives Ruby a signed confession from Buck stating that he and Ruby boned several times in the boathouse on campus. Mrs. Ironwood says that the confession gives “all the disgusting details” of their multiple trysts. But this is the literal confession, yo:
WHOA, salacious AF!Ruby insists she’s innocent at her hearing. Then Louis comes in and saves the day by testifying that she was with him at the time of the claimed “tryst”. Mrs. Ironwood, however, refuses to take the testimony of a blind man, but Louis says that the butler saw Ruby, and then reads the time on the clock, proving that HE’S NOT ACTUALLY THAT BLIND!
Day saved, Ruby confronts the teacher who claimed to see Ruby and Buck together. The teacher insists she saw Ruby, which leads Ruby to believe that it was Giselle…who can’t walk. OR CAN SHE?!
Ruby sneaks into Giselle closet to find the ragged-ass blue suede ballet flats that the teacher saw on the girl who boned Buck. Then Giselle comes in and gets out of her wheelchair. Giselle’s got PLANS, yo, and she plans on keeping her newfound ability to magically walk again a secret until Christmas, and if Ruby plans on telling anyone that she’ll tell the school that Miss Stevens is a lesbian.
A Very Serious BoyfriendGiselle gets to reveal her newfound ability to walk (which is so cringe, guys), but I guess it was a “magic” paralysis, so whatever? Daphne also reveals news that she and Bruce are engaged. This enrages Ruby, who claims that it’s only been two months and that Daphne has no business moving on from her precious father, but it doesn’t really matter much when Beau comes over and gives Ruby his class ring. They profess their love to each other and smash noses all over again.
After winter break, Giselle returns to school a proper Queen without her wheelchair. Ruby, however, finds out that Miss Stevens “resigned”, which Ruby doesn’t believe at all. Mrs. Ironwood claims that the school found Miss Stevens to be of “questionable moral character”, which is a whole lotta BS now but obviously wasn’t in 1962. Once again, Mad Men def handled this plot point a whole lot better.
Angry, Ruby goes out to confront Giselle about getting Miss Stevens fired, but then throws up all over the school grounds with that very special and very realistic Lifetime prop vomit. And we all know what random vomiting means, people!
SHE’S PREGNANT!Ruby is sent home to Daphne, who schedules Ruby a secret abortion and forbids her from ever seeing Beau again. Beau sneaks into the house and tries to get Ruby to run away with him before his parents can send him to go to school in France.
What is nice about all this, however, is that Ruby and Giselle do have a nice talk about using condoms, so there’s that, right? Safe sex talk between sisters? Even though it’s kind of too late for one of them?
Cut to the abortion clinic, which has the nastiest gynecological instruments of all time:
Like that one speculum is totally oxidized, yo. And the nurse even touches the blades with her bare hands when she sets them on the tray. And because this is a Lifetime movie, it’s impossible to tell if this is their way of conveying to the viewer that it’s an unsafe back-alley abortion clinic, or if their prop department really sucks that much? Because I literally cannot fucking tell.
Ruby obviously panics and runs away, stopping at the literal crossroads between Houma and New Orleans to call Paul Tate to get her. He drives Ruby back to her Grandmere’s cabin and pleads for her to stay with him. And hey, if it were me, I’d totes stay with Paul, who looks lot hotter this movie, mind you.
Ruby, however, decides to stick it out and live the whole montage cottagecore life on her own, painting and selling produce at the roadside stall. Then her belly gets big enough to maybe look like she’s just getting past 6 months, which I guess is enough for Lifetime to be like SHE’S DUE!!!!
A hurricane comes over the bayou and Paul comes in with a letter from Giselle. He wants her to go with him, but she insists on staying in the wind-ravaged cabin to read the letter, which flies out of the window that breaks from the legit hurricane-force winds. Paul tries to block the window with one weak-ass board.
Then Ruby’s contractions start and she screams on the floor until the screen goes black.
After the StormRuby and Paul exit the storm-ravaged cabin, which isn’t so ravaged, after all, considering that all he has to do is right one bone-dry rocking chair on the veranda for Ruby to sit in. He asks if she’s picked a name for the baby, and Ruby has. It’s Pearl. Pearl Dumas? Or Landry? Or Tate?
Ruby then finds Giselle’s letter, which isn’t destroyed at all from all the rain. Giselle’s doing fine. Beau’s getting serious in France with some new girl. Daphne’s pissed that she’s now a GILF.
Giselle wonders if she and Ruby will ever see each other again…
Final ThoughtsI have trouble deciding if this move was better than Ruby or not? I mean, we got a pretty decent high school drama. It felt like a less complete episode of Gossip Girl, which was nostalgic to me. But having the extra characters crammed in there for no other reason than to give Giselle victims felt kind of silly. I liked Ruby’s friendship with both Abby and Miss Stevens but we didn’t really get to see much more past the tip of the iceberg for me to care about these characters, other than the fact that they were people of marginalized communities in a not-so-empathic time.
I did appreciate a few of the humorous dorm interactions between Giselle and Mrs. Penny.
As for Beau, well, he was very under-utilized and basically only ever came into play when Ruby needed a good distraction-lay. The plot just forces them to be in a relationship together, and while the actors have good chemistry on screen, the script doesn’t give them a whole lot of work with in order to cement their relationship in a believable way.
Lastly, I thought the “mystery” of Louis’ character was decently directed, considering that this is a Lifetime movie and not much time overall could have really been dedicated to that plot. Ruby still basically just attaches herself to him because he’s attractive, though, I and it’s a little inconsistent how she flirted with BOTH Louis and Buck throughout the film when she was supposedly also head over heels for Beau. It would have helped to get a bit more characterization focusing on her still feeling “lost” while navigating her world, but again, this is Lifetime and they don’t seem to know how to write characters for shit.
As a generalized softcore shock school drama, I thought Pearl in the Mist proved entertaining enough.
The post V.C. Andrews’ PEARL IN THE MIST – Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
V.C. Andrews’ PEARL IN THE MIST: Lifetime Movie Review
So, I didn’t think the Lifetime adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ Ruby was all that bad, honestly. I liked the actresses who play the series’ twins, and I didn’t hate Beau. In this next movie, we follow Ruby and Giselle off to their private boarding school. What random 2nd book irrelevant antic will befall them? Let’s find out in my review of Lifetime’s adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ Pearl in the Mist.
Some Notes Going InI actually haven’t had the chance to read Pearl in the Mist yet. Why, you might ask? Well, I discovered V.C. Andrews at the thrift store, and at the time the shelves would be flooded with used copies, but never the ones you actually needed to read in order. I found my copy of Ruby but could never get my hands on the second book in the series. Finally, I caved finally caving and signed out a copy of All that Glitters (the third book) from the library. I assumed that nothing major had happened, but colour me surprised.
Some stuff of relevance happens, though of course much of the series from this point isn’t entirely fresh in my memory.
Off to SchoolWe start off with Ruby and Giselle setting off for the Greenwood School for Girls. Ruby, now the apple of her Daddy’s eye, gains some extra scorn points from the now paralysed Giselle. Once at the dorm, Giselle finds the first unsuspecting girl to make her slave, because she’s paralysed and uses this to her advantage. I guess, go her?
We also meet Mrs. Penny, the most amazing dorm mother any girl could ever ask for. She’s GIDDY AF in every scene she bursts into, and I am all for that shit.
Next up is orientation, run by the stern Mrs. Ironwood, who says that the school will not tolerate alcohol or drugs or promiscuity at all. Giselle complains of this later with the other girls in the dorm, when a new girl, Abby, walks in late. Still without a roomie, Ruby latches onto Abby, complimenting her on her, uh, tanned skin.
Abby: *awkward* I guess I tan easily.
Ruby: I burn easily. Redhead, you know?
And I was like, oooookay, we going there. Turns out that Greenwood treats mixed-race kids (or half-breeds, as Abby refers to herself) the same way the British Monarchy treats Meghan Markle, and somehow the entire school — including Ruby, who befriended many black people on the bayou — is colour-blind just enough to think that Abby spent her entire summer on the beach? I don’t buy that obvious non-canonical character ignorance just to fulfil a plot point, but FINE LIFETIME.
Abby eventually spills her mixed-race beans to Ruby, who gets all Justin Trudeau about it by stating, “IT IS 1962, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” as if that’s gonna stop obvious future plot developments from happening.
SPOILER: IT WON’TCut to art class, where Miss Stevens, the art teacher with a suspiciously not-early 1960s pixie cut, gets the girls to paint a boot and praises Ruby on her talent. We don’t get the chance to befriend Miss Stevens for long, though, because Mrs. Penny arrives to pull Ruby off to Mrs. Ironwood’s office to get told off for being a promiscuous Cajun girl.
Ruby cries in some far-off part of campus, where she and Abby discuss both being “outsiders”. Then a sexy groundskeeper confronts them for being there, saying that they can’t be around him, or on the grounds after dark. They admire his muscles, and Ruby looks him over particularly lustily.
Later, she eye-fucks him again when the girls from the dorm head to the house of Greenwood’s most charitable donor, Mrs. Clairborne. Once inside, Ruby takes quick notice of the fact that all the clocks in the house are stuck at the time 5:02.
The Sexy Piano-Playing Blind GuyMrs. Clairborne proves herself quite the stick in the mud. None of the girls seem to enjoy their visit, save for Ruby, who delights when Mrs. Clairborne allows her to wander off and look at her oRiGiNaL VanGogh painting. Ruby then hears piano music playing, and she wanders upstairs to find a Ben Shapiro playing his bed Edward Cullen angsty piano in room all by himself. His name’s actually Louis Clairborne, as he’s the grandson of Mrs. Clairborne (and nephew of Mrs. Ironwood!). He’s just got that Ben Shaprio jawline and matter-of-fact obnoxious AF way of speaking.
He’s also blind, which he exposits to Ruby and to the viewers in case we didn’t understand why his stare was so blank in the first place. The two get acquainted, but then Louis sends her off right quick.
Later, when returning to the dorm, Ruby laments how fun it was to meet Louis, which sends Mrs. Penny into rightful hysterics that Ruby shouldn’t have gone off or talked to him at all. On account of THE TRAGEDY!!!!!
The girls egg Mrs. Penny on, and she eventually lets slip that the Mrs. Clairborne’s daughter and son-in-law died. Giselle hounds that they were murdered.
Mrs. Penny: What happened in is the Clairborne’s business and not for us to gossip about. That poor boy Louis was left an orphan and blind from his grief.
Abby: But…isn’t that gossip, Mrs. Penny?
Mrs. Penny:
The “Clairborne Secret”Back in the dorm, Ruby dies her already dry hair in front of the window while sexy groundskeeper Buck watches her through the window. Giselle overhears Ruby and Abby speculating what the “Clairbone Secret” is. Abby mentions that she doesn’t mind not knowing so long as nobody knows that she’s Meghan Markle. Giselle wants to trade secrets, but Abby keeps her cards close to the vest.
Later, Ruby paints with Miss Stevens, but then goes on to eyefuck Groundskeeper Buck. Miss Stevens catches her and Ruby suggests Buck is too old and that Miss Stevens should date him. But Buck isn’t actually Miss Stevens’ type, which Ruby fails to catch onto. No matter, because Miss Stevens knows what the “Clairborne Secret” is.
FLASHBACK TIME!Turns out Louis Clairborne’s mother was having an affair with a much younger man. His father caught her in the act and ultimately ended up smothering her with a pillow. The didn’t put up much of a fight and took like 5 seconds to die and then the father shot himself, all while Louis was watching. The shock sent him right into a coma. Then, when he woke up, he was blind.
The next day, Mrs. Penny comes in to break news that Ruby has been invited back to the Clairborne house. There, she has dinner with Louis and his grandmother. Later, she’s back with him in the piano room, letting him play all his “guitar guy at the party” moves on her, but, you know, with a piano. He plays all the classics like “Chopsticks” and “Moonlight Sonata”.
Ruby quickly gets WAP and leans her head on Louis’ shoulder. This catches Louis off-guard and Ruby’s like, OH, I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE I LAID MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER! Louis admits that he’s never been alone with a girl and Ruby lets him touch her face. Then Ruby gets the great idea to let him kiss her but she literally doesn’t lead him or give him any idea where her face is. So when he leans in and misses, Ruby has the gall to laugh at him.
“Don’t be so stiff,” she says, but Louis is rightfully hurt but he also kind of over-reacts by spinning around and storming off.
Giselle’s WrathBeau comes to visit and they head off to make out in a barn. Beau stops her and gets all asshole about it: “Maybe we should stop because I know where this is going, or rather, where it’s NOT GOING.”
Ruby unbuttons her shirt and claims that they’ve waited long enough. Then, later on, she goes to the dance with the nearby boy’s school. Before the party starts, Giselle gives Abby a flower for her hair, claiming that they want her to be “queen of the fall mixer”.
Sodas are popped. Girls arrive in dresses that do their best attempt at pretending to be early 1960s dresses while obviously being made by low-paid garment workers in China. Ruby flirts with Buck (to be polite, she claims), but he tells her that he can’t talk to her.
Boys pick girls to dance, but not Abby. The entire night, boys go out of their way to avoid her. Finally, Ruby snaps, but then Giselle takes the mic and announces Abby as the school’s first “half breed fall mixer queen”. Abby takes the stage and defends herself, claiming to be too good to slap Giselle in the face. Ruby, however pushes Giselle out of her fucking wheelchair like a savage.
Like, girl, just tone it back a bit. Her disability has nothing to do with her bitchiness. Except that it kind of does? Because of Ruby? Right?
Secrets RevealedDespite being “put on lockdown” over the dance incident, Ruby is permitted to go and visit Louis again. Apparently, he’s getting his eyesight back! Ruby head on over in the most amazing dress over, and the two hit it off before going to Louis’ room at Ruby’s request.
Louis has a massive painting of his mother in his room, and he says that his mother used to lay with him in bed and hold his hand at night. He then lays down and invites Ruby to do so as well.
“I want you to know how it was with us,” he says, explaining that she would take his hand and press it to her chest, and then she’d put her hand between his fucking legs and on her breasts and that one night his father found them like that. He’d cry every night after that because he was scared, but his dad thought that Louis was crying for his mother so he whooped him silly with a belt.
Then Louis’ mother found another boy and Louis grew upset. Then the murder stuff happened and I was like HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL but you know, this is V.C. Andrews stuff, right?
A Death in the FamilyLike many V.C. Andrews fathers before him, Pierre Dumas dies of a sudden heart attack and Ruby and Giselle get sent back home. Daphne takes the family reins, telling the girls they they still both have their inheritance but that neither of them will be receiving any of the money until they’re 21. She expects both girls to behave themselves. Ruby asks if Daphne has told Uncle Jean about Pierre.
Daphne hasn’t, but has clearly taken to boning Pierre’s business partner, Bruce.
Ruby heads back to the mental hospital, shocked to find that Daphne has stopped paying for his private room. Now jammed in a ward with several other patients, Jean is worn and dishevelled, but his messy hair looks a lot sexier than his old pomade-buried hair, but maybe that’s just me. Ruby breaks the news of Pierre’s death and Jean obviously doesn’t react well. Like what the hell did you expect, Ruby?
Anyway, Ruby heads back home to confront Daphne, but Daphne obviously doesn’t give a shit. She stands up firm and tells Ruby that she can’t attend the funeral, and it’s at this point in the movie where the flaws in the Lifetime makeup department start to become quite obvious.
Like Daphne’s lipstick really could use a reapplication. Often times, Giselle’s lipstick is quite worn. And honestly, considering that there’s a scene in the first movie where Giselle shows Ruby how to blot her lipstick properly, you’d imagine her lips would be flawless but Giselle’s lipstick could always use a fucking touchup and she never gets it.
There’s a Whore in This HouseRuby spends one more night at home, but it’s a sad one, which is made obvious when the camera focuses on his sad gargoyle on the grounds that I’ve seen for like the 12th time in this series now.
Beau comes into her room and Ruby’s donning a sexy little negligee with ruffle panties that looks nothing like any of the billowy negligees featured on Mad Men. She tells Beau to lock the door because she “needs something nice to happen”, and so the two have passionate sex in front of the fire, which is kind of sad that that’s all Beau has become in this movie, is a good hard D.
Back at school, Ruby still has a WAP for Buck, who avoids her for like the 14th time. Then Ruby’s back at the Clairborne house with Louis while he’s playing a piano. He’s apparently started seeing a psychiatrist, who claims that he’s getting his sight back because he finally has somebody he can trust. Ruby admits that she has a boyfriend, but Louis says he knew all along and the two are suddenly just totes friends who never had any tension.
With that plot point out of the way, Ruby is dragged back to Mrs. Ironwood’s office. Mrs. Ironwood gives Ruby a signed confession from Buck stating that he and Ruby boned several times in the boathouse on campus. Mrs. Ironwood says that the confession gives “all the disgusting details” of their multiple trysts. But this is the literal confession, yo:
WHOA, salacious AF!Ruby insists she’s innocent at her hearing, but then Louis comes in and saves the day by testifying that she was with him at the time of the claimed “tryst”. Mrs. Ironwood, however, refuses to take the testimony of a blind man, but Louis says that the butler saw Ruby, and then reads the time on the clock, proving that HE’S NOT ACTUALLY THAT BLIND!
Day saved, Ruby confronts the teacher who claimed to see Ruby and Buck together. The teacher insists she saw Ruby, which leads Ruby to believe that it was Giselle…who can’t walk. OR CAN SHE?!
Ruby sneaks into Giselle closet to find the ragged-ass blue suede shoes ballet flats that the teacher saw on the girl who boned Buck. Then Giselle comes in and gets out of her wheelchair. Giselle’s got PLANS, yo, and she plans on keeping her newfound ability to fucking walk away a secret until Christmas, and if Ruby plans on telling anyone that she’ll tell the school that Miss Stevens is a lesbian.
A Very Serious BoyfriendGiselle gets to reveal her newfound ability to walk (which is so cringe, guys), but I guess it was a “magic” paralysis, so whatever. Daphne also reveals news that she and Bruce are engaged. This enrages Ruby, who claims that it’s only been two months and that Daphne has no business moving on from her precious father, but it doesn’t really matter much when Beau comes over and gives Ruby his class ring. The profess their love to each other and smash noses all over again.
After winter break, Giselle returns to school a proper Queen without her wheelchair. Ruby, however, finds out that Miss Stevens “resigned”, which Ruby doesn’t believe at all. Mrs. Ironwood claims that the school found Miss Stevens to be of “questionable moral character”, which is a whole lotta BS now but obviously wasn’t in 1962. Once again, Mad Men def handled this plot point a whole lot better.
Angry, Ruby goes out to confront Giselle about getting Miss Stevens fired, but then throws up all over the school grounds with that very special and very realistic Lifetime prop vomit. And we all know what random vomiting means, people!
SHE’S PREGNANT!Ruby is sent home to Daphne, who schedules Ruby a secret abortion and forbids her from ever seeing Beau again. Beau sneaks into the house and tries to get Ruby to run away with him before his parents can send him to go to school in France.
What is nice about all this, however, is that Ruby and Giselle do have a nice talk about using condoms, so there’s that, right? Safe sex talk between sisters? Even though it’s kind of too late for one of them?
Cut to the abortion clinic, which has the nastiest gynecological instruments of all time.
Like that one speculum is totally oxidized, yo. And the nurse even touches the blades with her bare hands when she sets them on the tray. And because this is a Lifetime movie, it’s impossible to tell if this is their way of conveying to the viewer that it’s an unsafe back-alley abortion clinic, or if their prop department really sucks that much? Because I literally cannot fucking tell.
Ruby obviously panics and runs away, stopping at the literal crossroads between Houma and New Orleans to call Paul Tate to get her. He drives Ruby back to her Grandmere’s cabin and pleads for her to stay with him. And hey, if it were me, I’d totes stay with Paul, who looks lot hotter this movie, mind you.
Ruby, however, decides to stick it out and live the whole montage cottagecore life on her own, painting and selling produce at the roadside stall. Then her belly gets big enough to maybe look like she’s just putting past 6 months, which I guess is enough for Lifetime to be like SHE’S DUE!!!!
A hurricane comes over the bayou and Paul comes in with a letter from Giselle. He wants her to go with him, but she insists on staying in the wind-ravaged cabin to read the letter, which flies out of the window that breaks. Paul tries to block the already broken windows with one weak-ass board.
Then Ruby’s contractions start and she screams on the floor until the screen goes black.
After the StormRuby and Paul exit the storm-ravaged cabin, which isn’t so ravaged, after all, considering that all he has to do is right one bone-dry rocking chair on the veranda for Ruby to sit in. He asks if she’s picked a name for the baby, and Ruby has. It’s Pearl. Pearl Dumas? Or Landry? Or Tate?
Ruby then finds Giselle’s letter, which isn’t destroyed at all from all the rain. Giselle’s doing fine. Beau’s getting serious in France with some new girl. Daphne’s pissed that she’s now a GILF.
Giselle wonders if she and Ruby will ever see each other again…
Final ThoughtsI have trouble deciding if this move was better than Ruby or not? I mean, we got a pretty decent high school drama. It felt like a less complete episode of Gossip Girl, which was nostalgic to me. But having the extra characters crammed in there for no other reason than to give Giselle victims felt kind of silly. I liked Ruby’s friendship with both Abby and Miss Stevens but we didn’t really get to see much more past the tip of the iceberg for me to care about these characters, other than the fact that they were people of marginalized communities in a not-so-empathic time.
I did appreciate a few of the humorous dorm interactions between Giselle and Mrs. Penny.
As for Beau, well, he was very under-utilized and basically only ever came into play when Ruby needed a good distraction-lay. The plot just forces them to be in a relationship together, and while the actors have good chemistry on screen, the script doesn’t give them a whole lot of work with in order to cement their relationship in a believable way.
Lastly, I thought the “mystery” of Louis’ character was decently directed, considering that this is a Lifetime movie and not much time overall could have really been dedicated to that plot. Ruby still basically just attaches herself to him because he’s attractive, though, I and it’s a little inconsistent how she flirted with BOTH Louis and Buck throughout the film when she was supposedly also head over heels for Beau. It would have helped to get a bit more characterization focusing on her still feeling “lost” while navigating her world, but again, this is Lifetime and they don’t seem to know how to write characters for shit.
As a generalized softcore shock school drama, I thought Pearl in the Mist proved entertaining enough.
The post V.C. Andrews’ PEARL IN THE MIST: Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
March 23, 2021
V.C. Andrews’ RUBY – Lifetime Movie Review
Okay friends, I originally (and rather foolishly) intended on reading the entire Landry series before the highly anticipated Lifetime adaptations came out, but here we are. Ruby was my very first V.C. Andrews read. I fell in love with it at age 14. I loved the richness of the bayou and all the horrible stuff that Ruby had to endure. And while I did actually manage to reread Ruby in March, I wasn’t able to set aside the time to write the Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews review. BUT, at least I’m entering the movie with fresh knowledge of all that happened in the book. So let’s review Lifetime’s guaranteed-to-be-shitty movie rendition of my favourite V.C. Andrews book, Ruby, shall we?
Some Notes Going InThe casting for Ruby excited me because they got actual twins to play Ruby and Giselle. They also had red(ish?) hair, which goes along with the characters, unlike what Lifetime did with Heaven in their adaption of the Casteel series. I also enjoyed the series promo images on the bayou. Obviously, I wasn’t going into the films with high hopes. Thus far I’ve seen Flowers in the Attic and Heaven.
Those are literally the ONLY Lifetime movies I’ve actually ever watched, so consider me a newb.
I’m also not entirely sure why Lifetime opted to only do adaptations of 4 out of the 5 books in the Landry series. The original press release said they’d do all five. Maybe the pandemic had something to do with it, or maybe the plot of Tarnished Gold didn’t make for a decent movie? I dug around and found nothing.
And yes, I do plan on reviewing all the V.C. Andrews movies at some point. I need to milk this name to get website hits for as long as I possibly can, baby.
The BayouOkay, the opening scenes in Houma were what MADE Ruby for me, so I was really excited to start off with some atmospheric gloomy bayou establishing shots. Then BAM, Ruby starts monologuing about Grandmere Catherine and we’re tossed right into the baby exorcism scene. And I don’t mean that we’re thrown into action, but more of a stage-direction action sequence where some poor mother who lost her baby cries about a demon taking the baby. Then Grandmere Catherine gives us the exposition, saying that the demon likes hiding in water.
Ruby literally turns around with her lantern and finds a fucking teacup on the floor and she’s like, “THERE’S SOME WATER!”
Then Grandmere lights a candle and the music goes heavy and she says some voodoo words and the candle goes out. Then she literally tells the mother who just lost her fucking baby, “Bury the child. The demon is gone.” Then they walk away.
Grandmere also sounds like a fucking robot and can’t deliver a single line for shit.
Cut to the next morning when Ruby’s painting a scene of a shadowed man in the bayou. In the book, this painting was a heron, but Ruby claims the that man is her father, which would be fine if the painting wasn’t so damn rudimentary-looking. Grandmere then robotically tells Ruby that Landry women don’t pick good men.
*WHICH IS FORESHADOWING*Cut to Ruby heading to school with her boyfriend, Paul, in a woods setting that so clearly isn’t the bayou that I had to look things up and YES, it turns out this movie was filmed in Victoria, British Columbia. Anyway, Paul looks like a young version of Jimmy Barrett from Mad Men and comes on just like waaaaaaay too strong after finding out that a different boy has asked Ruby out to the fais dodo dance. Movie Ruby plays coy and toys with Paul, unlike the book Ruby, who remained naive and shy.
To be honest, I quite like the sassy Ruby. But then she goes back to her Grandmere at their roadside market stall and asks for permission to go to the dance with Paul, and Grandmere’s like:
DO NOT BONE PAUL TATEThen, she starts coughing, which is the shitty movie plot device that guarantees she is not long for this world. But us viewers aren’t even long for the coughing. A man drives up in a fancy sedan. He owns a gallery in New Orleans and he wants to buy all of Ruby’s paintings. Happy music plays and the scene cuts back to Ruby with Paul in his truck, parked outisde of the bar for no other reason than for it to be convenient that they’re there when Ruby’s Grandpere Jack gets kicked out of the bar.
Remember what I said about Paul coming on strong?
Well, Ruby and Paul take Grandpere Jack back to his grubby cabin. He passes out on the bed and Ruby starts cleaning, wary about the fact that her family is a bunch of poor scum when Paul isn’t. But Paul doesn’t care. He tells Ruby that he loves her. Ruby tells Paul that she loves him. The sappy piano music builds. Then they kiss. THe kisses grow passionate. Then Paul pushes Ruby up against the wall OF HER GRANDFATHER’S CABIN, IN WHICH HE IS CURRENTLY PASSED OUT. Paul lifts Ruby onto the table but then he drops her down on it hard enough to clatter all the grubby plates.
Grandpere wakes, not quite lucid, and two laugh about how this is how they expected things to go. Which means that they totally would have done what robot Grandma told them not to do IN RUBY’S GRANDFATHER’S CABIN, IN WHICH HE WAS CURRENTLY PASSED OUT.
This shit was not in the dang book, man.
New Shit Comes to LightPaul takes Ruby home and we cut to Grandmere spying on them kissing through the lace curtains. Grandmere decides that Ruby’s finally old enough to know the truth that Paul isn’t just some rich oil dude’s son. He’s actually Ruby’s half-brother, born out of rape when Paul’s father seduced Ruby’s late mother, Gabrielle.
Grandmere: Out of all the boys, you had to choose Paul Tate?
Ruby: STOP IT!
Grandmere: It’s true, Ruby. You’re going to have to tell him Goodbye.
Ruby sobs and protests but then the sad music builds up into a score, so she has to accept the truth.
Grandmere:
Hug. Granddaughter. Show. Emotion.The scene then cuts, which is one major qualm I have with Lifetime movies, is that they basically just churn out plot with virtually NO CHARACTERIZATION and all the characters just feel wooden and rigid. Then the scene moves on into the next, unable to follow the character’s emotional gravity through the story. In this case, Raechelle Banno managed to give Ruby a few quirks and depth with what limited script she was given, so we get to follow her into the next totally-simulated “bayou” scene in Victoria, B.C. where she lies to Paul, telling him that they need to admit that they’re “from two different worlds”.
She wants to focus on being an artist. Paul loses his shit and implies that her being a “Landry” means that she’s a whore. He leaves Ruby crying, and Lifetime’s poor timing cuts right into the next scene where Ruby walks right up to Grandmere’s literal death bed, shouting, “LOOK! SPECIAL DELIVERY FROM THE CHEVELLIER GALLERY!”
Even More New Shit Comes to LightGrandmere starts coughing up something fierce and tells Ruby to put the money in a Bible in her special chest that’s literally right in front of the bed, saying that Grandpere Jack won’t find it there. Ruby then finds a picture of herself as a little girl with a man inside the Bible. Grandmere then fesses up that the girl in the picture isn’t Ruby, but Ruby’s twin sister, who Grandpere Jack sold to a rich man named Pierre Dumas who, once again, seduced Gabrielle and impregnated her.
Unable to have children with his wife, Pierre agreed to buy the baby, but nobody knew at the time that Gabrielle was pregnant with twins. Grandmere delivered Ruby and raised her as her own after Gabrielle died.
Grandmere knows she isn’t long for this world, so she tells Ruby to use the money to go to New Orleans and find her family. Then, when Ruby goes to try to get her some medicine, Grandmere conveniently dies literally while Ruby’s back is turned.
New OrleansGrandpere Jack crashes Grandmere’s funeral, vowing to quick drinking and take proper care of Ruby, but then the next scene cuts to Ruby in her bed listening to the sound of Grandpere drinking it up with his buddies. Paul comes in through the window and tries to make out with Ruby. She doesn’t even get a chance to push him away, because Grandpere busts in and tells her that he’s going to sell Ruby to his rich friend Buster.
The next morning, Grandpere locks Ruby to her bed and invites Buster over. In the book, Grandpere fails to actually chain her to the bed, but the movie has her legit chained to that thing, man, and when Buster comes over, he offers Grandpere an extra 500 bucks to “break her in” first. Paranoid, Ruby manages to break the bed and hide AOC-style behind her bedroom door, smashing Buster in the face before nearly choking Grandpere to death.
She finds Buster’s $1500 bucks but LITERALLY TOSSES IT ASIDE for the, what, $200 that she got from selling her paintings? Seriously, Ruby? Take all the fucking money. No shame, lady. No shame.
Ruby befriends a nice woman named Annie at the bus station, who gives her the neckbone of a cat that was murdered at midnight, claiming that it’ll give Ruby some “good gris gris”. But this is a V.C. Andrews story, so we know that nothing good will come of this.
Daddy’s HouseThankfully, Lifetime decides not to depict the near-rape scene in New Orleans and gets Ruby to her father’s mansion in no time. A young lad named Beau pulls up in his literal penis car. He laughs at Ruby for being dresses like a peasant girl, even though he’s also in some ridiculous getup for Mardi Gras. He calls Ruby “Giselle”, which then allows Ruby to explain to Beau exactly what’s going on.
Thankfully, Beau grasps the concept pretty quick, but when he “surprises” Giselle the twin sister she never knew about, Giselle of course responds like the bitchy twin sister she’s supposed to be. In the chaos, Ruby then meets the friendly cook, Nina, who will be of some importance later.
Ruby meets her father, Pierre, and her step-mother, Daphne. Worried about keeping up appearances, Daphne explains that in order to stay in New Orleans, Ruby must tell everyone that she was kidnapped by swamp folk at birth. Daphne then buys Ruby a bunch of new clothes WHICH ARE FROM EVERY FUCKING ERA IMAGINABLE. Like, Lifetime either has no historians in their wardrobe department or they just don’t give a fuck.
Oh, and Pierre’s also super troubled because he cries in his older brother Jean’s room ever night. Giselle explains that Jean isn’t dead, but locked up in the nearby mental hospital.
Queen GGiselle, obviously tormented by the idea of a new girl in the house, comes home and borrows a dress from Ruby’s new wardrobe after pretending to befriend her. Later, she invites Beau and another dude named Harold over for a night of fun, even though she’s the only one who ends up getting wasted from her super cute flask. Giselle drunkenly pretends to be the slut from the swamps and hams it up with Harold. Beau, well, tries to do the same with Ruby in another room.
Honestly, it’s hard for me to know how to feel about Beau. Teenage me hated book Beau because he was all high-pressure LET’S BONE NOW and I just wanted Ruby to be with her brother Paul. Lifetime Movie Beau, well, he’s charming and all but still carries a lot of that 1950s-era LET’S BONE NOW mentality that frustrates the hell out of me. Fortunately, movie Ruby has a bit of WAP for movie Beau and her scenes with him play a lot less rape-y than the book ones. I like them together.
BUT THEN, when Giselle senses that Ruby and Beau are getting on, she loses it and confronts them, then immediately throws up all the fuck over Harold. And honestly, I gotta give some major cred to the fake vomit department at Lifetime for this because that shit looked pretty real, yo.
When Ruby enters school, we get to see this crazy mix of 80s makeup, 50s sweaters and Blair Waldorf headbands that I’m actually quite down for. Also, no shit, there’s a scene with Ruby wearing this 2010’s fast fashion bejewelled headband in one scene, and I shit you not, in the very next scene, Daphne is wearing it.
Figure 1: DEFINITELY NOT EARLY 1960s FASHION, BUT NICE TRY, I GUESS?After school, Giselle drags Ruby to some rough area of New Orleans so Harold can buy weed. While there, Ruby’s friend Annie makes a reappearance as an escort. She’s a really friendly escort and I’d totes be friends with Annie. She’s SUPER NICE. Also: sex work is real work, yo. Giselle, however, threatens to use this “friendship” against Ruby. You know, when the timing’s right.
The buying of the weed doesn’t end up leading to the “smoking of the weed” scene from the book, which I’m sure was pretty shocking in the early 90s when the book came out. Instead, we hop straight over to the sleepover scene, wherein Giselle gets Ruby to put on some old bathing costume from the 1920s. But when Ruby goes to change in the bathroom, two boys go Psycho, jumping out from behind the shower curtain on Ruby’s ass to snap a naked picture of her.
The DickAnyway, Beau decides to take Ruby’s moment in the school bullying spotlight to ask Ruby out on a date, which they go on. Ruby, however, wont’ let Beau go anywhere past first base. Beau keeps foolishly trying, which inevitably leads us to that great scene from the book in Ruby’s new art studio.
Because this is Lifetime, we don’t get much forewarning. Beau just sees her painting and immediately starts stripping down. Unlike book Ruby, Lifetime Movie Ruby is actually kind of down for it, EVEN THOUGH THE DOORS TO THE ART ROOM ARE FRENCH DOORS COVERED BY THE FLIMSIEST FUCKING LACE CURTAINS IN THE UNIVERSE.
Ruby paints her little heart out, though nothing is made of the part where she actually starts sketching his dick. Inevitably, Daphne comes home and hears the two laughing. She tries to unlock the door, demanding to know what they’re doing in there, even though she could just FUCKING LOOK THROUGH THE DAMN CURTAINS.
The MatriarchDaphne confronts Ruby about her slutty antics before the family. This is where Ruby’s “friendship” with prostitute Annie comes into play, though not for a much.
Under a pile of trouble, Ruby confronts Giselle one last time, begging that they be real sisters, but Giselle plays a big Dina Fox and won’t let down.
Nina, the cook, sees Ruby’s pain and drags her into the city to see Mama Dede, a voodoo priestess who does a pretty good job of putting a curse on Giselle. The scene actually is a pretty effective one. The actress is great. The music and visuals are great. Ruby walks out terrified that she did the wrong thing.
“If things turn out the way you want, you deserve the things. And if they don’t, you deserve the blame,” Mama Dede says, cradling a python that hisses for some reason?
Uncle JeanThe next day, Giselle ends up paralyzed in a horrible car accident. Ruby blames herself but then her dad also cryptically says that it’s his fault and Ruby’s all like WTF? All while the actress to plays Daphne cries like an idiot on his shoulder WHILE THEY’RE IN THEIR LIVING ROOM INSTEAD OF AT THE HOSPITAL LIKE REASONABLE PARENTS WOULD DO.
Ruby and Nina make eyes at each other, knowing that this is a result of the voodoo. And at this point, I’m like, Isn’t this kind of Nina’s fault? She’s the grown-ass woman who brought a minor to a powerful voodoo lady to solve a bullying problem. Like, Ruby didn’t even fully consent to participate in the ritual. She was kind of pressured into it, wasn’t she?
So Ruby heads over and tells Giselle the truth, that it was her fault. Giselle says that the only way Ruby can make things up to her is by getting paralyzed too.
The Last-Minute Insane Asylum PartWith literally ELEVEN minutes left of the movie, Daphne invites Ruby to go and visit Uncle Jean at the mental hospital. Turns out, however, that Daphne runs off to the ladies room only to get Ruby committed to the mental hospital. The doctor there shows Ruby the naked picture she drew of Beau to prove it, but there isn’t even a hint of peen:
Imagine Beau actually posing for this. It’s hysterical. I died. I’m dead.So Ruby gets carted away, shoved into a white gown and forced to play Chinese checkers by herself. A nice guy at the table beside her says he knows how to get out, but Ruby tells him to leave her alone. Then she sees a well-dressed man who she KNOWS is Uncle Jean, and she tells him her whole life story. Jean responds by shouting JIB JIB JIB over and over.
Then Ruby asks the nice guy if he can show her how to get out, which is literally just asking one of the orderlies to unlock a door that so obviously don’t have a lock on it, run PAST the ladies room and further down the hallway, then open a window and climb out. The music and direction make this scene seem like The Shawshank Redemption, but literally, the hardest thing Ruby has to do is climb a fucking crate, so yeah.
VengeanceRuby walks in on Daphne’s fancy tea with the ladies. I love this scene because she literally walks in still wearing the asylum gown and she’s looking all busted up and dirty and takes on some ATTITUDE, friends.
Long story short, Ruby properly confronts Daphne, mocking her that Pierre cheated on her. Daphne lets up on her original plan to have Pierre committed to the hospital too. Then, SURPRISE, Pierre walks in and admits that he tries to kill Jean by releasing the jib on their boat to collapse over the brother he was always jealous of?
Like, should we address this revelation? No, because Pierre loves Ruby so much and vows that jealousy will never hurt their family again even though Giselle is fucking paralyzed and NOBODY GOES TO VISIT UNCLE JEAN IN THE HOSPITAL.
Next Time on The Landry Series…Pierre suggests that Ruby and Giselle attend a private boarding school. Ruby is unsure but we know they’re gonna go, because what the hell would we be doing in the next movie if she didn’t wanna go?
Then, Paul rings the doorbell. Ruby jumps all over him and apologizes for leaving. Then the music changes to some cheesy hopeful piano music and Ruby’s like OMG GISELLE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT HER LONG LOST BROTHER FROM THE BAYOU!
Like she’s legit mocking her now when literally the last scene we saw of them together, Giselle vowed never to forgive her.
But Lifetime Giselle is just like WUUUUUUUUUT?
Final ThoughtsI honestly didn’t hate this movie. I mean, one can’t expect much to begin with. Nobody’s gonna waste their time actually making a top-tier drama out of this material. The writers chopped most of the irrelevant bits out of the novel and kept most of the core plot intact. Just wish it wasn’t like PG so we could get just a BIT more edge out of that painting scene with Beau because to me that scene was very integral to Ruby’s character and the fight between her wanting to be a “good girl” to stay in New Orleans, and her budding sexuality.
But yeah, the actors did what they could with the script here and, I look forward to reviewing Pearl in the Mist for you all next!
The post V.C. Andrews’ RUBY – Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
V.C. Andrews’ RUBY: Lifetime Movie Review
Okay friends, I originally (and rather foolishly) intended on reading the entire Landry series before the highly anticipated Lifetime adaptations came out, but here we are. Ruby was my very first V.C. Andrews read. I fell in love with it at age 14. I loved the richness of the bayou and all the horrible stuff that Ruby had to endure. And while I did actually manage to reread Ruby in March, I wasn’t able to set aside the time to write the Grown-Ass V.C. Andrews review. BUT, at least I’m entering the movie with fresh knowledge of all that happened in the book. So let’s review Lifetime’s guaranteed-to-be-shitty movie rendition of my favourite V.C. Andrews book, Ruby, shall we?
Some Notes Going InThe casting for Ruby excited me because they got actual twins to play Ruby and Giselle. They also had red(ish?) hair, which goes along with the characters, unlike what Lifetime did with Heaven in their adaption of the Casteel series. I also enjoyed the series promo images on the bayou. Obviously, I wasn’t going into the films with high hopes. Thus far I’ve seen Flowers in the Attic and Heaven.
Those are literally the ONLY Lifetime movies I’ve actually ever watched, so consider me a newb.
I’m also not entirely sure why Lifetime opted to only do adaptations of 4 out of the 5 books in the Landry series. The original press release said they’d do all five. Maybe the pandemic had something to do with it, or maybe the plot of Tarnished Gold didn’t make for a decent movie? I dug around and found nothing.
And yes, I do plan on reviewing all the V.C. Andrews movies at some point. I need to milk this name to get website hits for as long as I possibly can, baby.
The BayouOkay, the opening scenes in Houma were what MADE Ruby for me, so I was really excited to start off with some atmospheric gloomy bayou establishing shots. Then BAM, Ruby starts monologuing about Grandmere Catherine and we’re tossed right into the baby exorcism scene. And I don’t mean that we’re thrown into action, but more of a stage-direction action sequence where some poor mother who lost her baby cries about a demon taking the baby. Then Grandmere Catherine gives us the exposition, saying that the demon likes hiding in water.
Ruby literally turns around with her lantern and finds a fucking teacup on the floor and she’s like, “THERE’S SOME WATER!”
Then Grandmere lights a candle and the music goes heavy and she says some voodoo words and the candle goes out. Then she literally tells the mother who just lost her fucking baby, “Bury the child. The demon is gone.” Then they walk away.
Grandmere also sounds like a fucking robot and can’t deliver a single line for shit.
Cut to the next morning when Ruby’s painting a scene of a shadowed man in the bayou. In the book, this painting was a heron, but Ruby claims the that man is her father, which would be fine if the painting wasn’t so damn rudimentary-looking. Grandmere then robotically tells Ruby that Landry women don’t pick good men.
*WHICH IS FORESHADOWING*Cut to Ruby heading to school with her boyfriend, Paul, in a woods setting that so clearly isn’t the bayou that I had to look things up and YES, it turns out this movie was filmed in Victoria, British Columbia. Anyway, Paul looks like a young version of Jimmy Barrett from Mad Men and comes on just like waaaaaaay too strong after finding out that a different boy has asked Ruby out to the fais dodo dance. Movie Ruby plays coy and toys with Paul, unlike the book Ruby, who remained naive and shy.
To be honest, I quite like the sassy Ruby. But then she goes back to her Grandmere at their roadside market stall and asks for permission to go to the dance with Paul, and Grandmere’s like:
DO NOT BONE PAUL TATEThen, she starts coughing, which is the shitty movie plot device that guarantees she is not long for this world. But us viewers aren’t even long for the coughing. A man drives up in a fancy sedan. He owns a gallery in New Orleans and he wants to buy all of Ruby’s paintings. Happy music plays and the scene cuts back to Ruby with Paul in his truck, parked outisde of the bar for no other reason than for it to be convenient that they’re there when Ruby’s Grandpere Jack gets kicked out of the bar.
Remember what I said about Paul coming on strong?
Well, Ruby and Paul take Grandpere Jack back to his grubby cabin. He passes out on the bed and Ruby starts cleaning, wary about the fact that her family is a bunch of poor scum when Paul isn’t. But Paul doesn’t care. He tells Ruby that he loves her. Ruby tells Paul that she loves him. The sappy piano music builds. Then they kiss. THe kisses grow passionate. Then Paul pushes Ruby up against the wall OF HER GRANDFATHER’S CABIN, IN WHICH HE IS CURRENTLY PASSED OUT. Paul lifts Ruby onto the table but then he drops her down on it hard enough to clatter all the grubby plates.
Grandpere wakes, not quite lucid, and two laugh about how this is how they expected things to go. Which means that they totally would have done what robot Grandma told them not to do IN RUBY’S GRANDFATHER’S CABIN, IN WHICH HE WAS CURRENTLY PASSED OUT.
This shit was not in the dang book, man.
New Shit Comes to LightPaul takes Ruby home and we cut to Grandmere spying on them kissing through the lace curtains. Grandmere decides that Ruby’s finally old enough to know the truth that Paul isn’t just some rich oil dude’s son. He’s actually Ruby’s half-brother, born out of rape when Paul’s father seduced Ruby’s late mother, Gabrielle.
Grandmere: Out of all the boys, you had to choose Paul Tate?
Ruby: STOP IT!
Grandmere: It’s true, Ruby. You’re going to have to tell him Goodbye.
Ruby sobs and protests but then the sad music builds up into a score, so she has to accept the truth.
Grandmere:
Hug. Granddaughter. Show. Emotion.The scene then cuts, which is one major qualm I have with Lifetime movies, is that they basically just churn out plot with virtually NO CHARACTERIZATION and all the characters just feel wooden and rigid. Then the scene moves on into the next, unable to follow the character’s emotional gravity through the story. In this case, Raechelle Banno managed to give Ruby a few quirks and depth with what limited script she was given, so we get to follow her into the next totally-simulated “bayou” scene in Victoria, B.C. where she lies to Paul, telling him that they need to admit that they’re “from two different worlds”.
She wants to focus on being an artist. Paul loses his shit and implies that her being a “Landry” means that she’s a whore. He leaves Ruby crying, and Lifetime’s poor timing cuts right into the next scene where Ruby walks right up to Grandmere’s literal death bed, shouting, “LOOK! SPECIAL DELIVERY FROM THE CHEVELLIER GALLERY!”
Even More New Shit Comes to LightGrandmere starts coughing up something fierce and tells Ruby to put the money in a Bible in her special chest that’s literally right in front of the bed, saying that Grandpere Jack won’t find it there. Ruby then finds a picture of herself as a little girl with a man inside the Bible. Grandmere then fesses up that the girl in the picture isn’t Ruby, but Ruby’s twin sister, who Grandpere Jack sold to a rich man named Pierre Dumas who, once again, seduced Gabrielle and impregnated her.
Unable to have children with his wife, Pierre agreed to buy the baby, but nobody knew at the time that Gabrielle was pregnant with twins. Grandmere delivered Ruby and raised her as her own after Gabrielle died.
Grandmere knows she isn’t long for this world, so she tells Ruby to use the money to go to New Orleans and find her family. Then, when Ruby goes to try to get her some medicine, Grandmere conveniently dies literally while Ruby’s back is turned.
New OrleansGrandpere Jack crashes Grandmere’s funeral, vowing to quick drinking and take proper care of Ruby, but then the next scene cuts to Ruby in her bed listening to the sound of Grandpere drinking it up with his buddies. Paul comes in through the window and tries to make out with Ruby. She doesn’t even get a chance to push him away, because Grandpere busts in and tells her that he’s going to sell Ruby to his rich friend Buster.
The next morning, Grandpere locks Ruby to her bed and invites Buster over. In the book, Grandpere fails to actually chain her to the bed, but the movie has her legit chained to that thing, man, and when Buster comes over, he offers Grandpere an extra 500 bucks to “break her in” first. Paranoid, Ruby manages to break the bed and hide AOC-style behind her bedroom door, smashing Buster in the face before nearly choking Grandpere to death.
She finds Buster’s $1500 bucks but LITERALLY TOSSES IT ASIDE for the, what, $200 that she got from selling her paintings? Seriously, Ruby? Take all the fucking money. No shame, lady. No shame.
Ruby befriends a nice woman named Annie at the bus station, who gives her the neckbone of a cat that was murdered at midnight, claiming that it’ll give Ruby some “good gris gris”. But this is a V.C. Andrews story, so we know that nothing good will come of this.
Daddy’s HouseThankfully, Lifetime decides not to depict the near-rape scene in New Orleans and gets Ruby to her father’s mansion in no time. A young lad named Beau pulls up in his literal penis car. He laughs at Ruby for being dresses like a peasant girl, even though he’s also in some ridiculous getup for Mardi Gras. He calls Ruby “Giselle”, which then allows Ruby to explain to Beau exactly what’s going on.
Thankfully, Beau grasps the concept pretty quick, but when he “surprises” Giselle the twin sister she never knew about, Giselle of course responds like the bitchy twin sister she’s supposed to be. In the chaos, Ruby then meets the friendly cook, Nina, who will be of some importance later.
Ruby meets her father, Pierre, and her step-mother, Daphne. Worried about keeping up appearances, Daphne explains that in order to stay in New Orleans, Ruby must tell everyone that she was kidnapped by swamp folk at birth. Daphne then buys Ruby a bunch of new clothes WHICH ARE FROM EVERY FUCKING ERA IMAGINABLE. Like, Lifetime either has no historians in their wardrobe department or they just don’t give a fuck.
Oh, and Pierre’s also super troubled because he cries in his older brother Jean’s room ever night. Giselle explains that Jean isn’t dead, but locked up in the nearby mental hospital.
Queen GGiselle, obviously tormented by the idea of a new girl in the house, comes home and borrows a dress from Ruby’s new wardrobe after pretending to befriend her. Later, she invites Beau and another dude named Harold over for a night of fun, even though she’s the only one who ends up getting wasted from her super cute flask. Giselle drunkenly pretends to be the slut from the swamps and hams it up with Harold. Beau, well, tries to do the same with Ruby in another room.
Honestly, it’s hard for me to know how to feel about Beau. Teenage me hated book Beau because he was all high-pressure LET’S BONE NOW and I just wanted Ruby to be with her brother Paul. Lifetime Movie Beau, well, he’s charming and all but still carries a lot of that 1950s-era LET’S BONE NOW mentality that frustrates the hell out of me. Fortunately, movie Ruby has a bit of WAP for movie Beau and her scenes with him play a lot less rape-y than the book ones. I like them together.
BUT THEN, when Giselle senses that Ruby and Beau are getting on, she loses it and confronts them, then immediately throws up all the fuck over Harold. And honestly, I gotta give some major cred to the fake vomit department at Lifetime for this because that shit looked pretty real, yo.
When Ruby enters school, we get to see this crazy mix of 80s makeup, 50s sweaters and Blair Waldorf headbands that I’m actually quite down for. Also, no shit, there’s a scene with Ruby wearing this 2010’s fast fashion bejewelled headband in one scene, and I shit you not, in the very next scene, Daphne is wearing it.
Figure 1: DEFINITELY NOT EARLY 1960s FASHION, BUT NICE TRY, I GUESS?After school, Giselle drags Ruby to some rough area of New Orleans so Harold can buy weed. While there, Ruby’s friend Annie makes a reappearance as an escort. She’s a really friendly escort and I’d totes be friends with Annie. She’s SUPER NICE. Also: sex work is real work, yo. Giselle, however, threatens to use this “friendship” against Ruby. You know, when the timing’s right.
The buying of the weed doesn’t end up leading to the “smoking of the weed” scene from the book, which I’m sure was pretty shocking in the early 90s when the book came out. Instead, we hop straight over to the sleepover scene, wherein Giselle gets Ruby to put on some old bathing costume from the 1920s. But when Ruby goes to change in the bathroom, two boys go Psycho, jumping out from behind the shower curtain on Ruby’s ass to snap a naked picture of her.
The DickAnyway, Beau decides to take Ruby’s moment in the school bullying spotlight to ask Ruby out on a date, which they go on. Ruby, however, wont’ let Beau go anywhere past first base. Beau keeps foolishly trying, which inevitably leads us to that great scene from the book in Ruby’s new art studio.
Because this is Lifetime, we don’t get much forewarning. Beau just sees her painting and immediately starts stripping down. Unlike book Ruby, Lifetime Movie Ruby is actually kind of down for it, EVEN THOUGH THE DOORS TO THE ART ROOM ARE FRENCH DOORS COVERED BY THE FLIMSIEST FUCKING LACE CURTAINS IN THE UNIVERSE.
Ruby paints her little heart out, though nothing is made of the part where she actually starts sketching his dick. Inevitably, Daphne comes home and hears the two laughing. She tries to unlock the door, demanding to know what they’re doing in there, even though she could just FUCKING LOOK THROUGH THE DAMN CURTAINS.
The MatriarchDaphne confronts Ruby about her slutty antics before the family. This is where Ruby’s “friendship” with prostitute Annie comes into play, though not for a much.
Under a pile of trouble, Ruby confronts Giselle one last time, begging that they be real sisters, but Giselle plays a big Dina Fox and won’t let down.
Nina, the cook, sees Ruby’s pain and drags her into the city to see Mama Dede, a voodoo priestess who does a pretty good job of putting a curse on Giselle. The scene actually is a pretty effective one. The actress is great. The music and visuals are great. Ruby walks out terrified that she did the wrong thing.
“If things turn out the way you want, you deserve the things. And if they don’t, you deserve the blame,” Mama Dede says, cradling a python that hisses for some reason?
Uncle JeanThe next day, Giselle ends up paralyzed in a horrible car accident. Ruby blames herself but then her dad also cryptically says that it’s his fault and Ruby’s all like WTF? All while the actress to plays Daphne cries like an idiot on his shoulder WHILE THEY’RE IN THEIR LIVING ROOM INSTEAD OF AT THE HOSPITAL LIKE REASONABLE PARENTS WOULD DO.
Ruby and Nina make eyes at each other, knowing that this is a result of the voodoo. And at this point, I’m like, Isn’t this kind of Nina’s fault? She’s the grown-ass woman who brought a minor to a powerful voodoo lady to solve a bullying problem. Like, Ruby didn’t even fully consent to participate in the ritual. She was kind of pressured into it, wasn’t she?
So Ruby heads over and tells Giselle the truth, that it was her fault. Giselle says that the only way Ruby can make things up to her is by getting paralyzed too.
The Last-Minute Insane Asylum PartWith literally ELEVEN minutes left of the movie, Daphne invites Ruby to go and visit Uncle Jean at the mental hospital. Turns out, however, that Daphne runs off to the ladies room only to get Ruby committed to the mental hospital. The doctor there shows Ruby the naked picture she drew of Beau to prove it, but there isn’t even a hint of peen:
Imagine Beau actually posing for this. It’s hysterical. I died. I’m dead.So Ruby gets carted away, shoved into a white gown and forced to play Chinese checkers by herself. A nice guy at the table beside her says he knows how to get out, but Ruby tells him to leave her alone. Then she sees a well-dressed man who she KNOWS is Uncle Jean, and she tells him her whole life story. Jean responds by shouting JIB JIB JIB over and over.
Then Ruby asks the nice guy if he can show her how to get out, which is literally just asking one of the orderlies to unlock a door that so obviously don’t have a lock on it, run PAST the ladies room and further down the hallway, then open a window and climb out. The music and direction make this scene seem like The Shawshank Redemption, but literally, the hardest thing Ruby has to do is climb a fucking crate, so yeah.
VengeanceRuby walks in on Daphne’s fancy tea with the ladies. I love this scene because she literally walks in still wearing the asylum gown and she’s looking all busted up and dirty and takes on some ATTITUDE, friends.
Long story short, Ruby properly confronts Daphne, mocking her that Pierre cheated on her. Daphne lets up on her original plan to have Pierre committed to the hospital too. Then, SURPRISE, Pierre walks in and admits that he tries to kill Jean by releasing the jib on their boat to collapse over the brother he was always jealous of?
Like, should we address this revelation? No, because Pierre loves Ruby so much and vows that jealousy will never hurt their family again even though Giselle is fucking paralyzed and NOBODY GOES TO VISIT UNCLE JEAN IN THE HOSPITAL.
Next Time on The Landry Series…Pierre suggests that Ruby and Giselle attend a private boarding school. Ruby is unsure but we know they’re gonna go, because what the hell would we be doing in the next movie if she didn’t wanna go?
Then, Paul rings the doorbell. Ruby jumps all over him and apologizes for leaving. Then the music changes to some cheesy hopeful piano music and Ruby’s like OMG GISELLE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT HER LONG LOST BROTHER FROM THE BAYOU!
Like she’s legit mocking her now when literally the last scene we saw of them together, Giselle vowed never to forgive her.
But Lifetime Giselle is just like WUUUUUUUUUT?
Final ThoughtsI honestly didn’t hate this movie. I mean, one can’t expect much to begin with. Nobody’s gonna waste their time actually making a top-tier drama out of this material. The writers chopped most of the irrelevant bits out of the novel and kept most of the core plot intact. Just wish it wasn’t like PG so we could get just a BIT more edge out of that painting scene with Beau because to me that scene was very integral to Ruby’s character and the fight between her wanting to be a “good girl” to stay in New Orleans, and her budding sexuality.
But yeah, the actors did what they could with the script here and, I look forward to reviewing Pearl in the Mist for you all next!
The post V.C. Andrews’ RUBY: Lifetime Movie Review appeared first on REBECCAJONESHOWE.COM.
