The Rival (2006) Reviews

• Tracy Nelson in good form - major spoilers

  g404c2006-10-09

  Very similar to another excellent film titled The Night Caller (which also cast Tracy Nelson as an unstable character), The Rival delivers an excellent made-for-TV movie that premiered on Lifetime tonight. Nelson is Alice, married to George (reliable performance from Linden Ashby) and together they want to find a live-in surrogate to have their child, since Alice is unable to get pregnant. They find Jennifer (soap star Heather Tom of One Life to Live, The Young and the Restless) through a colleague of George's and all seems to be in order. But, Alice has an aunt who taunts her and tells her George will cheat on her with Jennifer. Already unstable, Alice kills her aunt and later kills her therapist (nice job from Barbara Niven) who "asked too many questions". Alice "hears" her aunt's voice even after her aunt's death and she becomes even more psychotic, prompting Jennifer and her daughter to move out. Needless to say, things get even worse. I will leave it at that. Brisk pacing and Tracy Nelson cast as Alice proved a smart mix--everything works here. Nelson chews up the scenery and it is fun to watch her. Producer Pierre David makes excellent thrillers and this one is no exception. Worth a look if you like thrillers like this. Also recommended: The Perfect Nanny, The Perfect Tenant, and The Perfect Neighbor, in addition to The Night Caller (all produced by David).

• Crazy as a loon

  caa8212007-05-23

  Tracy Nelson's character is nuttier than the proverbial fruitcake. Of course, these Lifetime flicks largely rely upon a whacked-out lead character who makes others miserable, commits mayhem and murder, and provides a dark shroud which largely dominates the story. Tracy and her hubby need a surrogate, and finally find one who suits them and is willing to live in their spacious house during the nine-month pregnancy. Tracy seems to be obsessed with this live-in arrangement, and then makes everyone miserable with her jealousies, and the musings of her aunt, who is as crazy and sociopathic as she is. She offs Auntie, as well as her therapist, who becomes suspicious -- but the aunt continues to push her even further into total lunacy from the dreams and visions which appear throughout. As par for these flicks, the husband, while apparently a successful and authoritative businessman, schleps around like he has doubled his dose of downers, and as perceptively as if he possessed an IQ in two digits. All-in-all, it's hard to care an iota about any of these folks, and Tracy's paranoiac and bipolar rantings, interspersed with whiny pleadings, are about as annoying as anything ever put on film. The rest of the cast does little or nothing to lessen this annoyance. In fact, the aunt only compounds it. The only minor positive aspect in watching this flick was a minimal fascination from its awfulness overall, coupled with watching Tracy and the aunt gnaw the scenery like a bevy of hungry beavers, amidst their thoroughly laconic fellow cast members.

• One of the worst TV movie I've ever seen !

  jocedeg2007-03-02

  After an assault, a pregnant woman loses her unborn baby and her soon-to-be-ex husband. Jump 7 years later: she's remarried and trying to find a surrogate mother to finally have a baby. But this woman is a total nut-case: she has visions of her murdered aunt who tells her to do very bad things. And she does. This (totally unbelievable) story of a psycho has more than one problem... I'll be brief: Bad acting from each of the unknowns cast in this poorly written story... next to zero budget... convoluted story... illogical character development... I've seen daily soaps on American TV with all that, but at least the bad actors in these soaps are kinda attractive. All in all, a totally horrible viewing experience. Skip !

• The Paranoia Of Alice

  Desertman842017-05-13

  Tracy Nelson together with Linden Ashby, Heather Tom and Sophie Gendron stars in this TV movie about surrogate motherhood and traumatized woman entitled "The Rival". Director Douglas Jackson's television film tells the story of Alice,who was shot in a robbery that resulted to losing the ability into having children.She married George and managed to having children by finding a surrogate mother in Jennifer.Unfortunately,she discovered the her husband is having an on-going affair with the surrogate mother.This resulted to her developing an obsession of fear and jealousy that Alice decided to trainwreck Jennifer by committing acts of harassment and tries to commit murder.It did not help too that she was traumatized by the robbery wherein she was shot that resulted to this craziness and paranoia. The TV movie did provide the story of Alice particularly the acts of murder that Alice did after she lost the ability to have children.She indeed tried to kill Jennifer the surrogate murder after she realized that the latter is having an affair with her husband and she became a jealous and an obsessed wife.Added to that,we also get to see how paranoid Alice is.Overall,we get to witness how dangerous she becomes towards others particularly the surrogate mother.Storywise,there is nothing really that happens except the acts of violence Alice commits towards other people.

• Like a long soap opera... Canadian style

  randy_kay2012-07-14

  I didn't think much of this film at all. To begin with, it was filmed in Ottawa -- although I must say they did a good job of hiding the fact. BTW, just to get it off my chest, the black cop detective has slicked back hair in a little pony tail, a la Miami Vice circa 1984...uh, producers, 20 years have past since then -- time to wake up. Tracy Nelson was good at being a clingy annoying nut bar woman who spends the entire film freaking out. She thinks a young hotty surrogate mom her and her hubby have hired to have their brat wants to steal him away. In fact she's so upset at the thought of losing him that she stabs him to death instead. Yep, that's what people who are deeply in love do -- they kill each other -- nice writing there fellas. Everything falls into place just the way you would expect any boring dumb film to. Honestly, if you watch this piece of &^%$, you'll feel sorry you wasted your time when it ends. I know I did.