Lifetime Review: 'Her Deadly Sugar Daddy'

While she moved to Los Angeles with her best friend Lindsey (Aubrey Reynolds) for a fresh start, aspiring blogger Bridget Caprice (Lauren Swickard née Lorynn York) finds her job hunt to be harder than she anticipated. Things seem to turn around, however, when Bridget meets Anthony Glonz (Brent Bailey), a CEO who offers her a position as his executive assistant. With no other prospects in sight, Bridget takes the job.

As Bridget learns, however, her new job entails more than keeping schedules and ordering coffees. Anthony also wants her to join him at business meetings, with her role being to woo clients and make them more likely to do business with Anthony. While she's at first uncertain, Bridget is lured in by the power her new job gives her--as well as the lucrative pay. But as she becomes further immersed, it becomes clear that Bridget's easy money comes with strings attached. Will Bridget be able to escape Anthony's hold before it's too late?

Being the latest film in Lifetime's sugar daddy catalog, Her Deadly Sugar Daddy has a lot of Lifetime-familiar talent behind it. In addition to being Brooke Nevin's debut as a director, the film was penned by budding Lifetime regular Brooke Purdy and has a production team containing nothing but people with Lifetime pedigree. But despite the experienced people behind it, Her Deadly Sugar Daddy instead feels like someone's first attempt at making a Lifetime movie. With so many problems weighing down what could've been an entertaining movie, Her Deadly Sugar Daddy crumbles under the pressure.

The movie gets off to a bizarre start with its cold open, which (in addition to being even more indirectly climax-spoilery than the one from Sorority Secrets) transitions from an intense action scene to a chipper narration from Bridget set to an ultra upbeat pop tune. While not a major deal, it does come across as an omen in hindsight to the bouts of over-the-top music throughout Her Deadly Sugar Daddy. It's rarely distracting, but always comes across as the movie trying too hard to convince the audience they're watching a taut thriller. Instead, it draws even more attention to the film's severest mistake: its yawn-inducing pace.

While the build-up to Bridget's entanglement with Anthony isn't too much, Her Deadly Sugar Daddy subsequently becomes a long stall as we see Bridget getting seduced by the trappings of her new life. Such plots have made for great Lifetime movies in the past (Mile High Escorts comes to mind as a recent example). But with this movie, it feels like it takes forever for Bridget to even realize the full extent of her work with Anthony, let alone become enamored with the money and high life. And when it does get to that point, we get to watch as Bridget begins her frustrating cycle of awareness. One second, she's uncomfortable with what Anthony's having her do, and another, she's embracing it and refusing to believe anything bad about her boss. This becomes especially annoying after Bridget has been shown tangible evidence to Anthony's bad side and has even witnessed his true nature, making her another recent Lifetime protagonist who proves difficult to sympathize with.

(SPOILER ALERT Ironically enough, both Bridget and Sinfidelity's Angela share in common the fact that neither get the satisfaction of killing the villain terrorizing them. In Bridget's case, it's even more demeaning how she spends her final moments with Anthony cowering in fear rather than trying to fight back. Spoilers Over)

It's a shame that Bridget's character arc is such a bust, because there was some potential to be found in her. Lauren Swickard gives a solid performance in her bungled character's better moments, particularly emotionally charged scenes. Bridget's backstory regarding her father, the sense of power she derives from her work, and her implied attraction to Anthony could've made for some compelling drama and character building had they been explored better. The montage of Bridget using her new job to start her first blog made for a fairly fun sequence. The first act has Bridget at her best, though, if purely because of how personally relatable she is to me; her being an aspiring blogger struggling to find full-time employment that will facilitate her art. Scenes of Bridget fruitlessly searching online for jobs definitely rang true for me, and given how the COVID pandemic has impacted employment for so many, Bridget's struggles are likely relatable to plenty of other viewers.

(Though a note to my readers: if I ever start referring to you as "my sweet readers" on a constant basis like Bridget, please stop me)

Had Bridget retained this relatable vulnerability throughout the movie, with the plot's focus being on Bridget trying to cut ties with Anthony only for him to retaliate, she would've made for a much more proactive and likable character. As is, Bridget's cognizance seems to vary depending on whatever the script needs her to do for the moment, and it's not until the climax that Bridget realizes she's in too deep and needs to get out--seemingly making this revelation for no reason other than "the movie's almost over and we need to get to the climax".

Adding fuel to the fire is Brent Bailey's portrayal of Anthony Glonz. Bailey does have his moments of being effectively chilling as Anthony's cold and controlling nature comes to light, with the tense standoffs between Anthony and Bridget in his office and later during the climax being Bailey's best scenes. But for much of Her Deadly Sugar Daddy, Bailey's deliveries are incredibly wooden--not helped by Anthony's bouts of overwrought villain dialogue. The main problem with Bailey's performance, however, is that he plays Anthony as such a cold and stoic person that it makes no sense why Bridget is so drawn to him. Furthermore, it makes the moments when Anthony suddenly becomes romantically obsessed with Bridget all the more confusing. Elsewhere, it would seem Anthony only cares about Bridget's ability to help his business. It would've been more consistent (and no less disturbing) if Anthony was wanting to keep Bridget under his thumb as a means of making more money. As is, though, Anthony Glonz is a standard and blandly acted Lifetime villain, and Bailey and Swickard's lack of chemistry doesn't help matters.

Of the side cast, Kenneth Miller stands out as the best of the bunch, giving Bridget's ex-boyfriend Zack the same earnest heart he gave to The Secret Life of a Celebrity Surrogate's Peter. Zack does, however, come with the downside of adding another unlikable fold to Bridget. Her reason for dumping Zack never makes sense, and the way Bridget rejects his increasingly valid proof against Anthony is infuriating. SPOILER ALERT And in another move that this movie copies from Sinfidelity but does worse, Zack never really gets a moment to call Bridget out for her mistreatment, and the film ends with the pair back together after Bridget's idiocy led to Zack getting kidnapped and almost killed. Spoilers Over

Despite a couple of awkward moments, Aubrey Reynolds brings appealing quirkiness to best friend Lindsey, while Elise Robertson does the same as Bridget's mother Jolene. Though in Robertson's case, her character's first big moment doesn't have her at her best. While the audience might know she's right about Bridget's job, Jolene's moment of Genre Savvy doesn't align with what Bridget and Lindsey tell her about the job (apart from the high pay, there's nothing in their description that's particularly alarming).

Because of that, Robertson playing Jolene's outrage with snide disappointment and her immediate assumption that Bridget has been "selling her soul" feels needlessly cruel and unwarranted. Her reaction would've made more sense had she inadvertently seen Bridget at one of these business dinners, thus seeing directly the situation her daughter's fallen into. Though even in that scenario, it wouldn't take away the slut-shaming undertones of Jolene's reaction--given how she appears less concerned about Bridget's well-being than she is ashamed at her for her pseudo-illicit work (because yes, despite the title, Anthony never becomes Bridget's sugar daddy in the traditional sense).

It's always a shame to see talented people come out with something beneath the skills they've previously demonstrated, and Her Deadly Sugar Daddy is a prime example of that. Despite having a solid cast of actors and a direction/production crew with more than their fair share of Lifetime experience, this movie falls well below the standards set by work they've done in the past. The stagnant pacing alone had the potential to do a lot of damage, with the poorly written characters and uneven performances only adding to that. For all the potential Her Deadly Sugar Daddy had to be a fun Lifetime thriller, its botches leave it with no room to grow. Here's hoping that Brooke Nevin's next foray into Lifetime directing will be for a movie that better reflects what makes Lifetime movies entertaining.

Score: 3 out of 10 ironic emojis.