Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013)

The Worst Film Ever

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This Lifetime film does a great job of depicting a pathetic relationship and sensational crime story that became fodder for the tabloids back in 2008.Tania Raymonde and Jesse Lee Soffer are thoroughly convincing as the obsessive seductress Jodi Arias and the Mormon motivational speaker Travis Alexander, whose in-the-shadows relationship was as torrid as it was dysfunctional.As is so often the case in dangerous liaisons, warning signs were present from the beginning. Jodi broke a boundary the first time she addressed Travis -- by barging into a men's room while he was urinating! It was just the first of many violations that Alexander refused to take seriously enough. He couldn't resist the sexy curves of a woman who knew all too well the power she held over men -- temporarily. Guys tended to use and discard her. This film depicts Jodi as an obsessive stalker who, in the case of her latest love -- a man who preached high standards but didn't follow them -- wasn't willing to accept another rejection.I don't know how accurate this movie was, but it does offer an explanation for how Jodi could have had sex with Travis, photographing him sensually in the shower, only to stab him shortly thereafter and shoot him in the face. The performances here are stellar, and the director creates tension as we watch Jodi up the ante, tormenting and then terrorizing a man she seems to both love and detest. Finally, in June 2008, he invites her in for tea. What were you thinking, man!? But then again, Travis didn't use his head much when Jodi was around. Jodi's boundary problems were evident from the start and the movie suggests Alexander had similar issues. He is amazingly open to reigniting passion with Jodi in the face of her increasingly sinister behavior, sending grievously mixed messages to a deeply troubled woman.To this film's credit, we get to know each of the principals in depth, with neither being shown as wholly likable or abhorrent.In all, this was magnificent work!

Surprisingly well done! I expected much less, so I was very pleased. The movie starts out strikingly flashing forward to the sensual, last photo shoot between lovers Jodi and Travis. It then moves back to the beginning of a story of love, hate and obsession, a modern day fatal attraction parable. Males, beware of unbridled sex without love, it seems to say. There's always a price to pay. For Travis, it was the ultimate price.Based on the infamous and horrible murder everyone's heard about,it shows how two attractive, smart, young people, Travis and Jodi, meet, in a Sin City Convention. Travis is a motivational speaker. Jodi goes gaga over Travis. Soon, they make passionate love. She falls for him,strongly! Trying to be his significant other, she even becomes a Mormon like him. According to the well written, credible script, Travis, however,soon realizes Jodi is not marriage material.He takes his religion seriously, which requires chastity, but he can't stop having great loveless sex with Jodi! Travis loving, close Mormon friends think Jodi's unfit and obsessed, want him to get rid of her. So he goes underground with Jodi, as his "dirty little secret", for a sexual relation. When he realizes he's getting in over his head, that Jodi wants more,he tries to break off. She doggedly pursues him with menacing and sick stalking. Hurt and disenchanted that Travis has a new, marriage-material girlfriend, Jodi plans revenge by horridly killing him in a gruesome bloodbath. Visually, the cinematography is stylish, with lovely bright, photography of their lovemaking leading to its horrible, almost unbearable-to-look-at climax, in slow motion.Other visual water tricks are awesome,as when the camera moves from the spiritual to the sensual, from Jodi's Mormon baptism to her cavorting in a Jacuzzi with Travis. The actors are an unexpected treat, both the main ones and the supporting cast. Tania Raymonde as Jodi is uncanny-even better than the real Jodi! She's alluring and sexy, totally credible as a wolfish seductress posing as innocent Little Red Riding Hood. In minutes, the real Jodi blends into Tania,we forget Jodi for this better version. Her characterization is as good as can be, sassy, alluring, sexy,creepy. Her innocent, little girl act is as good as Arias'. Her angry, evil persona is terrible and fearful. Her look as she shoots Travis in the final ritual sacrifice is frightful.. I also found Jesse Lee Soffer very suitably cast as Travis. At first he looks lightweight and boyish, but as the story progresses he develops Travis into the charismatic and attractive guy Jodi would fall in love with. Soffer plays Travis with the right blend of innocence and roguishness.The scripted role makes his characterization human, sympathetic and likable. Not much is made in the script of Travis importance as big brother to his siblings.But the movie does make his awful death heartfelt, poignant and tragic. One is left with a sad sense of the pitiful loss of a valuable human being by an obsessed and vengeful monster,For a Lifetime movie, this movie surpassed all my expectations. The way the script treats Jodi's relation to her grandmother and friends humanizes her.It helps to soften her image without justifying her horrible deed. The last ten minutes summarizes the arrest and trial kind of shoddily, not enough development. One wishes to have it more leisurely treated in a Part II. Even as roughly sketched, Jodi's weird behavior during interrogation with Detective Alvarez and also, the subsequent Martinez badgering during the trial are witty and interesting, leaves you wanting more. This is certainly not a masterpiece, but as Lifetime movies go, an above average, respectable representation of a compelling real story. The fatal love story of Travis and Jodi is credible, engrossing, even thrilling. Would you believe the director's name is Jace Alexander, like the victim? Pretty good direction, for a speedy job.

Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013)* (out of 4)A new crime tale overtook mainstream America so naturally Lifetime would turn it into a movie. Jodi Arias (Tania Raymonde) begins a torrid sexual affair with Travis Alexander (Jesse Lee Soffer) and soon she becomes obsessive and kills him. Am I the only person in the world who finds Travis to be a bad guy? I certainly don't agree or condone what happened to him but at the same time I must admit that I found him to be a jerk by the way he just wanted to use this woman for sex, keep her in the background and hidden from his friends and pretty much just use her whenever he needed her. Sure, thousands if not millions of guys do this to women but most of them don't do it to someone crazy, which is obviously what Jodi was. This Lifetime movie is pretty awful all around and largely because you really don't learn anything about either people and we're left with a story of unsympathetic characters and certainly no one to life. Director Jace Alexander takes a fairly interesting "case" and turns it into a pure case of boredom because there's no energy, no life or anything else going on here. The entire film seems to run on longer than the real-life trial because we just keep getting scenes that add up to nothing. This here is more like a low-rent version of FATAL ATTRACTION but without the performances, tension or style. The movie has all sorts of problems including how it goes all out to paint Travis as this clean-cut Mormon who did nothing wrong and just wanted to help people. We get at least two scenes where Jodi sexually comes onto him while he turns away. Yet, minutes later, we see them two in a steamy sex affair where he's the one using her. You can't have it both ways. Even worse is the fact that these scenes trying to make Travis look clean are done in such a way that you really can't help but laugh at them. Both Raymonde and Soffer are good in their roles but sadly they're just not given much to do. When one watches Lifetime you really don't expect quality but I must say this here is without question one of the worst products they've'e turned out.

I felt the made-for-TV movie about Jody Arias was actually very good and was a balanced presentation of a sensational story. Jody Arias is obviously unbalanced, paranoid, has super-low self-esteem, and many other psychological defects. But as the story is shown, it also balances this with Travis Alexander's duplicity. He wanted to maintain the appearance of being a good, pious Mormon but kept Jody Arias as his secret life and kept her out of the mainstream of his life. When he tried to break up several times, he always ended up back in bed with Jody. He certainly did not deserve the terrible thing that happened to him, but he contributed his share. I thought the film was balanced and worth watching.