Lifetime Review: 'The Wrong Crush'

For high school student Amelia Cross (Victoria Konefal), her life was forever changed the night she and her best friend Joy (Stefanie Rons) were involved in a horrific car crash after a night of partying, with Amelia surviving the accident while Joy perished. Amelia took the tragedy as a wake-up call to turn her life around, and two years later, Amelia is working hard at earning a track scholarship and is in a strong relationship with her boyfriend Scott (Pedro Correa).

But despite her best efforts, Amelia's past still haunts her, as she remains estranged from her mother Tracy (Lesli Kay) and the victim of harassment from Joy's grieving and vengeful parents (Meredith Thomas and Jon Briddell). In the midst of the chaos, Amelia finds herself befriending new student Jake (Ricardo Hoyos), whose charming and supportive demeanor is a breath of fresh air to Amelia. But unbeknownst to her, Jake not only has a few dark secrets in his past, but has also become intensely obsessed with Amelia. How far is Jake willing to go to win Amelia over—and will Amelia be able to stop Jake before her already fractured life is destroyed?

On the surface, The Wrong Crush appears indistinguishable from the other teen obsession thrillers Lifetime has under its belt. This is especially true in hindsight, given that two years after this film's premiere, David DeCoteau would release two other films in his "Wrong" series focused around a troubled teen becoming the victim of an obsessed boyfriend. But what sets The Wrong Crush apart from the films that would follow it and the other films in Lifetime's collection that replicate its plot is that the film puts much more of a spotlight on its main heroine's troubled past than other such films usually do. Handled poorly, this could've proven to be a fatal mistake, but in the hands of DeCoteau and the team of writers and actors he assembles, this different way of storytelling works well.

Granted, The Wrong Crush does tend to indulge more in developing Amelia's troubled past and the effect it continues to have on her life and those around her, with Jake's obsession taking the backseat for a lot of the film. It's a move that will inherently turn off viewers coming to the film looking for a Lifetime-ian obsession thriller, but The Wrong Crush more than makes up for the audience dividing direction by playing its storyline with painstaking authenticity. The film's team of writers (Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan, and Matthew Jason Walsh) goes out of their way to use Amelia's tragic past to craft an emotionally charged story, rather than this backstory solely serving as window dressing. It's a different direction than Lifetime usually goes with this type of film, and one that many viewers are sure to enjoy once they recover from the misdirection.

Amelia Cross is a character that practically demands a strong performer be cast to play her, given how emotionally charged the role is, and Victoria Konefal more than rises to the occasion. From her opening scene of an injured Amelia learning that the accident she was in claimed her best friend's life, Konefal brings a heart wrenching realism to Amelia's continued grief for the late Joy as well as her guilt over her role in the accident. Konefal shines best in her scenes where she finds herself dealing with the strain the accident put on her relationship to her mother, with their climatic confrontation near the third act serving as Konefal's high point of the film. But for all of the crushing emotional scenes Amelia is at the center of, the script and Konefal's performance allow her to maintain a hidden strength that is never quashed by the callousness and cruelty surrounding her. Whenever someone in her life tries to talk down to her or throw verbal abuse her way, Amelia never truly takes it lying down, making her a thoroughly likable protagonist whose happy ending you will thoroughly root to see.

Much of the cast surrounding Konefal also do well. Ricardo Hoyos plays well off of her as Amelia and Jake's snarky friendship transforms into something sinister, with Hoyos later turning Jake into an effectively chilling villain once he's pushed over the edge. Pedro Correa does well as boyfriend Scott, providing a few emotionally-fueled moments when he becomes a target of Jake's deranged pursuit that make up for some out-of-place-and-character bouts of "Jerkass/Jealous Boyfriend"-itis. Meredith Thomas and Jon Briddell are solid as Mr. and Mrs. Hessler, with the former bringing emotional depth to an initially hard-to-like character, and Vivica A. Fox is charming as ever as Tracy's co-worker Gwen. A bit of humor gets injected into the proceedings with Reatha Grey as sassy nursing home resident Mrs. Wheeler, with Grey and Fox even sharing a meta Easter egg moment that will be a nice treat for well-versed Lifetime followers.

But unfortunately for the cast, there is one member who sticks out in the worst way: Lesli Kay as Amelia's stuck-on-the-past mother Tracy. The Wrong Crush's premiere had me completely hating Tracy with a fiery passion, and while time and a critical evaluation has extinguished that blaze a bit, her character still never comes off as understandable as she was meant to. When a mother character begins a film by blatantly not caring about learning a prowler spying on her daughter, you have a lot of work to do to make her likable, and The Wrong Crush drops the ball on Tracy. Tracy's backstory regarding Amelia more than lends itself to bringing sympathy and understanding to her callous behavior, and Lesli Kay has her share of moments where she tries to humanize Tracy and show that, for her many faults, she's ultimately a mother left with proverbial and literal scars from her daughter's past life.

But ultimately, The Wrong Crush is frustratingly uneven in regards to Tracy's character. A perfect example of this comes in a scene Amelia catches Tracy crying over a picture of her and Joy in her bedroom, a moment which opens Tracy up to reveal her pent-up emotions and how they effect her ability to move forward. But instead, the film drops this moment without further exploring it, and the otherwise excellently acted climatic confrontation between Amelia and Tracy ends on a sour note, with Tracy outright refusing to support Amelia for no real established reason other than "the plot demands it." It all makes for a very disjointed character arc, one which is only exacerbated by Kay's occasionally uneven performance, which betrays her later attempts to bring understanding to her loathsome character.

(On a sidenote: a strong reason why Gwen and Mrs. Hessler are such strong characters is that both unapologetically call out Tracy for her terrible parenting and unwillingness to let go of the past, with Meredith Thomas doing so in a poignantly acted scene that serves as one of the best moments of the whole film)

The unconventional plot direction and prickly character of Tracy will both be hard pills to swallow for some viewers, leaving The Wrong Crush with something of an audience dividing nature to it. But with an excellently constructed emotional story and a strong cast to bring it to life, The Wrong Crush has as much strong qualities to it as it does negative. It won't suit everyone's taste, but if you're willing to give it a chance, this film's sincerity and heart might just win you over.

Score: 7 out of 10 odd knife exercises.