Lifetime Review: 'My Husband's Secret Twin'

Thriving businesswoman Melanie Saxons (Charlotte Graham) has an idyllic life, running a successful furniture store alongside her best friend Alisa (Sofia Mattsson) and enjoying a perfect marriage with her equally successful husband Derrick (Rick Cosnett). But following a business trip, Melanie begins to notice some peculiar differences in her husband. He abruptly showers her with gifts, is reluctant to talk about their past, and generally seems more distant than before. While Alisa tries to ease her friend's worries, Melanie can't help but feel something is wrong....

Little does Melanie know how right she is, as prior to his "trip", Derrick was kidnapped by his twin brother Alex (also played by Cosnett), a deranged psychopath intent on taking over his brother's life in order to steal his and Melanie's money before killing them both. With Melanie's suspicions rising, will she be able to uncover the truth before Alex can fulfill his diabolical plan?

For the second time this month, Lifetime presents us a Reel One Entertainment film about a sibling's return bringing chaos and sinister secrets into the ideal life of a successful woman. Unlike the similarly titled My Sister's Deadly Secret, however, My Husband's Secret Twin (originally titled The Wrong Husband) has an actual sibling as its deranged villain and a sibling of the successful woman's husband rather than her own.

A commonality also emerges from each film's villain, in that both are played with vigor by their actors. But despite Diora Baird's excellent performance in My Sister's Deadly Secret, Rick Cosnett as the unapologetically despicable Alex outruns her portrayal by miles. From his first scene of joyfully taunting a captive Derrick to using continuous violent threats to make his brother help him continue his charade with Melanie, Cosnett never fails to make Alex a villain who will make your skin crawl at how thoroughly evil he is—and how proud he appears to be of that fact. While the other half of Cosnett's dual role doesn't get as much screen time, he makes the most of his scenes as Derrick, with his best moment being when we learn from Derrick about his traumatic past with his evil brother, with Cosnett bringing the emotion needed to convey just how twisted Alex is.

Charlotte Graham stars opposite Cosnett as Melanie Saxons, and while she never quite reaches the same heights set by her costar, Graham does well to measure up to Cosnett in Melanie's emotional character arc. As Melanie comes to realize that something is not right about her "husband", Graham does well in delivering the terror and suspicion that grip Melanie as she grows more and more fearful of the man she has been in love with for two years.

It's also through Melanie that My Husband's Secret Twin flips the script on Lifetime's formula a bit. Typically, it would be the heroine's best friend (Alisa) who is quick to suspect something is amiss, and the heroine (Melanie) who tells her she's being paranoid and remains oblivious to the situation until much later. Here, however, Melanie is quick to realize something has changed about "Derrick" and acts accordingly, while Alisa takes a bit longer to realize that her friend's worries are justified. As such, Melanie becomes a refreshingly non-naivete-stricken protagonist, giving her fight to find the truth more rewarding and her dynamic with Alex as she grows closer to the answer more tense.

Though she becomes the bearer of naivete for much of the film, Sofia Mattsson remains charming as Alisa, sharing strong chemistry with Graham that makes you believe in Alisa and Melanie's friendship and getting a moment in which she saves herself from becoming a hopelessly naive character. On the lower side of the secondary character roster, however, we have Raymond and Detective Grant (played respectively by Cayleb Long and John Lacy).

While neither Long or Lacy give bad performances, their characters are both so thinly written and utilized that they each could be cut from the story entirely without removing anything. SPOILER ALERT While Raymond's reveal as Alex's accomplice could have made for an interesting twist, the film tips its hand to the reveal far too early, rendering any surprise it could have brought moot. Raymond is then left incredibly disconnected from the story and Alex's plan until the third act, where he simply acts as a false ally to Melanie before being unceremoniously killed off by Alex before the climax. In contrast to Detective Grant, however, Raymond's role is the pinnacle of importance. Outside of being an exceptionally grating variation of the "Useless Lifetime Cop" trope who outright ignores Melanie's attempts to explain her situation to him before rushing to everyone's rescue after Melanie's already neutralized the situation, Grant is a character who could have—and honestly should have—been written out. Spoilers Over

WARNING: Spoiler SECTION below

Then, there's the matters of Alex's character development and the ultimate wrap-up, the latter of which takes a lot of bite out of what could've been a strong and memorable Lifetime villain. Like with Raven from My Sister's Deadly Secret, Alex starts out as a wickedly remorseless sociopath, gleeful in torturing his brother, manipulating Melanie, and killing anyone who stands in the way of his scheme. But not long after Alex's disturbed backstory is revealed to us by Derrick, Alex suddenly shows a bout of humanity when he finds himself hesistant to kill Melanie—very similar to the moment Raven has in My Sister's Deadly Secret.

This not only goes against Alex's characterization up to that point as an unfeeling psychopath who only sees Melanie as a means of hurting Derrick and getting rich, but (like with Raven) cheapens what was being built up as a memorably dark villain by giving them some rushed attempts at character development. The ending is similarly tone-deaf to the film that preceded it, as given just how traumatizing Derrick's past and present experiences with Alex were, ending the film on the standard "Happily Ever After" epilogue—with an ironic reveal that Melanie and Derrick are expecting twins—is especially jarring.

Spoilers Over

Overall, My Husband's Secret Twin builds on the strengths found in My Sister's Deadly Secret—while also falling victim to the same pitfalls. While the characterization botch and mood whiplash ending stick out like sore thumbs, the strong casting and exceptionally nasty villain you will love to hate make up for where the film goes awry. If you enjoyed My Sister's Deadly Secret despite its flaws, you're sure to enjoy My Husband's Secret Twin as well.

Score: 8 out of 10 rings of eternity.