Villainess Review: Joelle (Girls' Night Out)

It's been five years, yet I still remember Lifetime's film, Girls' Night Out--especially the surprise ending, but I'll get to that. This film centered on exactly what the title says: a girls' night out--namely a bachelorette party. The bride-to-be and main protagonist is McKenzie, and the women involved in the party are her former sorority sisters: Joelle, Rebecca, and Sadie, with Joelle planning the party. A night of wild fun and a lot of drinking is in the cards, but what wasn't in the cards was a vengeful vendetta enacted by McKenzie's ex-boyfriend, Brandon.

As the film told us, Brandon sexually assaulted McKenzie in college, but the trial ended with Brandon's acquittal. Even so, Brandon had remained insistent that he was slandered, so he plotted his ultimate revenge--abducting Reese (McKenzie's fiancé) and forcing the girls to perform various tasks for him. The quartet was separated into two duos (Joelle/McKenzie & Rebecca/Sadie), and throughout the ordeal, McKenzie is basically forced to relive that the trial and the terrible aftermath.

So how was Brandon acquitted? Turns out, McKenzie's innocent little lie about smoking led to a conclusion that she lied about the assault. Oh brother. It gets worse. McKenzie revealed that she was subjected to hideous slut-shaming after the acquittal, and it was why she left Chicago, with Reese being the only reason why she returned. Going off-topic a bit, knowing what we know now about what the Blackhawks did in 2010 regarding Kyle Beach, it doesn't surprise me that this reaction happened in the Windy City. Just saying.

Anyway, things take a terrible turn when Rebecca and Sadie were ordered to brand themselves, but after Rebecca does, Sadie has enough and attempts to escape, resulting in Brandon strangling Sadie to death with his bare hands. Afterwards, Brandon orders Joelle and Rebecca to participate in a "game" that involved consuming whatever drug or alcoholic substance possible in a span of only an hour, while McKenzie is ordered (at gunpoint) to recant her story and tell the truth. McKenzie does tell the truth: she was assaulted by Brandon. They were both drunk on the night in question, and Brandon forced herself on McKenzie, even placing his hand on her mouth during the assault. It's at this moment that Brandon and his picture perfect memory finally come together, and he realizes that McKenzie was right all along.

What we get is remorse from Brandon for not only the assault, but for everything else he's done, only for Joelle to enter and tell Brandon that it was over. Brandon had voiced his love for McKenzie, who (along with Joelle) pleaded with Brandon to drop the gun, with Brandon doing so. As McKenzie went to tend to Reese, Joelle suddenly picked up the gun and shot Brandon to death, and her reasoning for doing so was a shocking one:

"I had no choice. He was never going to stop loving you."

So Joelle revealed that she had been in love with Brandon since their college days, but he was with McKenzie, while referring to her own affections as a case of bad timing. Joelle met up with Brandon during a conference in Florida, and they hooked up several times, stating that it was just like college, except without McKenzie. When Brandon learned about McKenzie's engagement, he snapped, so (as McKenzie deduced) Joelle planned the party to get Brandon's attention; hoping that he would get his revenge, move on, and he and Joelle would be together. The scheming Joelle stated that she had no idea that Brandon's vendetta would go as far as it did, which included Sadie's death, while McKenzie attempted to convince Joelle that she was a good person. In response, Joelle said that "sometimes, good people are capable of doing very bad things," and after this, the villainess turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.

Girls' Night Out aired on Lifetime on January 22, 2017, and featured Kelly Kruger as the film's hidden main villainess, Joelle. I vividly remember watching this film when it aired, and I also remember being surprised by Joelle's heel turn in the final moments, though to this day, I still love that swerve. Despite her friendly demeanor in the film, Joelle (as the climax revealed) was quite a twisted and insane villainess. Let's look at the facts here. Joelle knew that the object of her obsession/affection, Brandon, was a rapist. Yet in spite of this, Joelle's torch for him continued years after Brandon assaulted McKenzie, and she even hooked up with him. Even worse, Joelle resorted to pushing Brandon to enact his revenge on McKenzie out of a delusional hope that he would move on from his ex-girlfriend, but even that failed. When Joelle killed Brandon, it wasn't out of any vengeance for his actions, it was because she didn't get what she wanted.

While Brandon did commit terrible actions in the film's events--cutting off Reese's ring finger and murdering Sadie, the actual person responsible was Joelle, as she basically nudged Brandon in that direction just so she could have him to herself. Kruger's performance was amazing; she acted out Joelle's friendliness very well for the most part, and her reveal saw more stellar acting from Kruger, as she does a stellar job portraying Joelle's jealousy of McKenzie, as well as her devious nature. Kelly Kruger has also played villainous roles in episodes of Knight Rider, Rizzoli & Isles, and Republic of Doyle, and she's also done some soaps as well, playing recurring roles on The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. Kruger also starred as main protagonist Nicole Turner in another Lifetime(-esque) film, Home Is Where the Killer Is.

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