Lifetime Review: 'A Sister's Secret'

Ever since they were teenagers, twin sisters Callie and Lizzie (Margaret Anne Florence) have had a habit of switching places with each other, either for fun or for each other's benefit. After meeting up for a birthday celebration with their aunt Rose (Catherine Dyer of Psycho-In Law fame), the sisters decide to take their game to a new level—by swapping places for a week, as both Callie and Lizzie are frustrated with their own lives.

But shortly after swapping lives, Callie is fatally struck by a car, with everyone coming to believe that it's Lizzie who has perished. Heartbroken and finding herself having to continue living a lie under such horrific circumstances, Lizzie isn't sure what to do and grapples with her conscience. But unbeknownst to her, it appears that Callie's killer was actually after her—and that he'll stop at nothing to make sure the next sister he kills is the right one.

As you might recall from my review of The Twin, I've wanted for Lifetime to start averting the evil twin trope and make a movie about twins where neither of the twins is a deranged, psychopathic murderer. While that is the case with A Sister's Secret, it, unfortunately, isn't executed as well as it could've been. While the "Twin Swap Gone Horribly Wrong" plot is certainly a creative one, the opening kills that potential with the fact that neither Callie or Lizzie come off as very likable. Margaret Anne Florence gives a good performance, but there's not much she can do with either of her dual roles when both of them come off as whiny, entitled, and overly self-centered. Callie's motivation for wanting to do the swap is that she's simply "bored" with having a family, and Lizzie's is that she wants a temporary escape from her own life of success, wealth, and leisure. Having such shallow reasons to want to swap places for a week makes it hard to feel bad when Callie ends up getting murdered and makes it especially hard to sympathize with Lizzie when she decides against telling her sister's husband and children the truth.

Speaking of which, Lizzie spending much of the movie refusing to come clean about the swap has to be A Sister's Secret's biggest mistake. While she tries to justify the act by saying she doesn't want to be the one to tell Callie's husband Grady and their children that their mother is dead, that really doesn't take away from the fact that she's willing to take over her dead sister's life and continuously deceive her husband and kids. Aunt Rose also falls victim to this, as while she does on multiple occasions call Lizzie out on her actions, she never actually tells Grady the truth about his "wife" and just stands by until the truth comes out and the expected fallout transpires. After that, Lizzie shows what looks to be true remorse for her deception and tries to make it up to Grady (who, as you can imagine, is having none of that), but it all comes off as too little too late. This all makes it near impossible to get drawn into the story or care for the movie's main heroine, making SPOILER ALERT the ending where Grady and Lizzie end up marrying and waiting until the children are older to tell them the truth feel cold and borderline disturbing. SPOILERS ENDED

With all of that said, A Sister's Secret has a lot of good going for it. Along with Margaret Anne Florence, Catherine Dyer, and Danny Boaz give excellent performances as Callie and Lizzie's outspoken aunt who serves as Lizzie's voice of reason throughout the movie and Callie's husband Grady who ends up giving Lizzie a much deserved calling out in the wake of her deceit being unveiled. Paula Abdul also makes a decent appearance as the investigating detective on Callie's murder, even though her role is so small that it seems she was only cast so the movie could cash in on her star power. The villains of the film also give genuine malice, but unfortunately, are given so little screen time and (in one case) introduced so late that they don't get much of a chance to have an impact on the viewer.

While its concept and casting may be strong, A Sister's Secret is unfortunately too mishandled in regards to plot to fully enjoy its good elements. It's far from the worst thing to ever grace the screens of Lifetime, but it's not the kind of movie that will bring a lot of viewers back for another view.

Score: 4.5 out of 10 tales of two cities.