The latest Lifetime thriller from director David DeCoteau (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous), Million Dollar Lethal Listing, is a topical look at the dangerous financial implications of home ownership, unequal incomes, and trusting your partner.
It’s clear early on that engaged couple Becca (Morgan Bradley) and Tom (Jon Briddell) don’t have a great relationship. She’s taken it upon herself to find them a home in between working “freelance” (in what field? It’s unclear) while he spends long hours at his law firm in an effort to make partner.
Becca’s friend Annie (Ciarra Carter) and her lawyer Meghan (Jackée Harry) are both wary of Tom. Meghan is pressing Becca to get a pre-nup because it makes financial sense to protect her sizeable half a million-dollar inheritance in the event of a divorce. Annie, meanwhile, doesn’t like how Becca loses her agency around her betrothed or how responsible she is for matters that both partners should be involved in, like, say, house hunting.
When Becca stumbles on a perfect property whose sale requires an “unusual” financing model, she rationalizes the decision to leverage her entire $500K over both Annie and Meghan’s objections. But as Lighthouse Realty employee Samantha Ryan (Jamie Bernadette) reminds her: at such a discounted price, the palatial home won’t stay on the market long. Plus: homeowner Riley King (Robert Brian Wilson) is very candid about needing a quick infusion of cash, so it must all be above board, right?
Obviously, because this is a Lifetime film, the answer is no.
In no time at all, Becca and Tom’s “too good to be true” home is revealed to be another man’s property, and the money, the realtor, and the OG homeowner have all disappeared into the wind. And if that weren’t bad enough, Tom refuses to involve the police for fear of looking foolish professionally and jeopardizing his promotion.
The biggest struggle in the first half of Million Dollar Lethal Listing is that it’s not clear why Becca is with Tom. As an audience we never see the positives in their relationship, so it’s hard to empathize with Becca’s decision to side with Tom when he essentially tells her that they’re going to keep the theft silent. He rationalizes that once he makes partner, he’ll make the money back in a year. When she encourages him to show more concern about her money, they get into repeated arguments about the semantics. To be fair to Becca, though: Tom’s proposal is completely wild and unreasonable.
But Becca goes along with it because she loves him (Allegedly. The film really needed to do more work here).
Before long, however, the financial scheme expands into conspiracy territory. At Annie’s urging, Becca begins her investigating on her own, tracking down Samantha and turning information over to Detective Ross (Meredith Thomas), the police officer working the case, as she uncovers more scheming.
But then there’s a murder, and Becca is not only implicated, but at the center of things.
While the film asked us to invest in Becca and Tom’s relationship too quickly, the last act similarly hits the accelerator too hard, too fast. Becca begins making increasingly unhinged (and frankly unrealistic) decisions that compromise her own safety. The same is true of Detective Ross, whose reactions too often feel motivated by the necessities of the plot. In both cases, the results, including the violent climax that is both predictable and unearned, wind up feeling cartoony and foolish rather than believable.
It’s disappointing because the initial conflict was grounded in relatable relationship issues of trust and financial insecurity. And while the complicated reality of who makes more money in a relationship and sharing resources may not be sexy enough for a Lifetime thriller, Million Dollar Lethal Listing generates plenty of fascinating fodder when Becca and Tom are simply fighting about his inferiority complex over her inheritance.
The film is perfectly serviceable, but it never truly finds itself. The plot is convoluted, but not enough silly enough to be a guilty pleasure. The violence in the first two acts feels out of place until it becomes over the top in the climax. Becca and Tom have relatable relationship woes until he begins acting like a maniacal control freak. And the continued use of POC actors in supporting roles without any depth or characterization beyond “best friend” or “lawyer” is disconcerting.
There’s a stronger, tighter film with something to say about money and marriage in here somewhere, but the film doesn’t trust its audience to care about a more grounded story. As a result, Million Dollar Lethal Listing lands firmly in the middle of realistic and sensational; the finished product doesn’t disappoint, but it doesn’t entirely satisfy, either.
Million Dollar Lethal Listing aired April 4 on Lifetime.
