A Lifetime movie about prostitution? How is that supposed to work exactly? Because on Lifetime you can't actually show anything. You can barely even hint at anything. But maybe that's OK because if you saw the main character getting down and dirty with an endless succession of men it might be hard to sympathize with her. And this movie clearly wants you to sympathize with her. The poor, sweet, lovable Texas mom who just has to sleep with hundreds of men. You know, for her family. She's doing it for her family so that makes it OK, right? Ick.
Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Sam. Both she and her husband are out of work. They are about to lose their home to foreclosure. And goshdarnit their son needs money to register for peewee football. What's a mom to do? Well, become a hooker of course. To be fair Sam doesn't set out to be a hooker. She thinks she's applying for a job as a massage therapist but it turns out this is a full-service massage parlor if you catch my drift. After approximately two minutes of moral indignation in which Sam refuses the job she frantically calls up the head hooker to beg forgiveness for any perceived slights against these hard-working women. Sam would just love the opportunity to be a prostitute after all. And so begins Sam's career as the most popular living, breathing blow-up doll in Texas. And everyone lived happily ever after. No, not really.
This is a movie which both insults your intelligence and bores you to death. Not a good combination. Nobody seems to question how it is that after a few weeks of working as a massage therapist Sam has enough money to not only pay off the bank but lavish all sorts of extravagant goodies on her family. Like a motorcycle for her husband. What a dunce this guy is. Doesn't question all the cash. Doesn't realize that his wife shouldn't be nearly as tired and strung-out as she is if she's just giving rubdowns all day. Doesn't question all the fancy new jewelry his wife's receiving as gifts from her clients. Sam explains the baubles away by saying they're fake. Yes, because massage therapy clients are well-known for brandishing jewelry, real or fake, on girls who rub their backs. That makes sense. The one friend Sam confides in does not do the logical thing which would be to smack Sam upside the head. Eventually the story takes a darker turn. Sam starts to lose control, then comes the inevitable dramatic final act plot twist which actually isn't at all dramatic. And then the filmmakers try to put a happy face on all of this because, again, they obviously want you to think good things about Sam. Don't you just love this brave, plucky little heroine? Not particularly. Hewitt turns in a decent performance, doing the best she can with a rather lousy script. None of the other performers, including Cybill Shepherd mailing it in playing Sam's mom, make any kind of positive impression at all. If this wasn't a Lifetime movie maybe it could have been spiced up a little bit. But it is what it is, a rather tame prostitution story. Who wants a tame prostitution story? Apparently Lifetime thinks we all do as they went and turned this rather lousy movie into a TV series. Endless hours of this drivel? No thanks, an hour and a half was plenty.
