The Wives He Forgot (2006)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

At the start of the movie, a large bald man is beating up Jay Miller, whose name we don't know yet. Mina witnesses this and is nearly attacked herself, but Jay, despite his injuries, goes after him.In her father's former law office somewhere north of Chicago, Charlotte has taken over her father's practice, and she's doing okay with various types of cases. Her mother died when she was young, and she lost her father while in law school. Jay barely makes it into the office and Charlotte can see he needs help. She takes him to the hospital, where she finds out he has no identification and doesn't seem to know who he is.Mina comes forward to say this man saved her life. He is honored by the town and called an "angel", given the name Gabriel. He moves in with Charlotte, who lives in her parents' big house, and goes to work as a volunteer at the hospital. Charlotte hasn't had good luck with men, but Gabriel seems very nice and, although Charlotte sort of has a boyfriend, it becomes obvious what's really going on.Then the ex-wives show up. Not one but two. Gillian is beautiful but spoiled, and Alicia is just plain nasty. We finally learn the man's real name, and we learn he worked at a travel agency. With all his traveling, it seems he was able to convince both women he was only traveling when, in fact, he was with one wife when not with the other. This is bigamy. The women want justice. Charlotte reluctantly agrees to serve as Jay's lawyer.The prosecutor looks almost exactly like Lauren Bacall but of course is much younger.This isn't really a romantic comedy, but the first half is so light-hearted and the music is perky. The second half seems more dark but can't really be taken that seriously.The ending is great.Molly Ringwald is all grown up. In this role she almost makes one forget about the cute teens she used to play. Almost. In some scenes it's still obvious she used to be cute. In others she looks so old ... well, let's say mature. And she's not exactly slim. She looks like real women look. And she does a pretty good job. As a male, I don't particularly care for her scenes with Charlotte's friend Gwen, who is attractive but has the attitude "Men are pigs and Oprah is our queen". And of course Charlotte gladly joins her in feeling this way, the only time I can't really like this character.Mark Humphrey does a good job as the mysterious Gabriel.Other than that, this is just a Lifetime movie, with a silly mystery. It's sort of enjoyable.

I'll second, third, or whatever the notion that this thing is amusing to watch just for Ringwald's performance; having a "real" movie actress in one of these formulaic vehicles kicks it up several notches. But in addition the whole thing is kind of a subversive self-parody of this genre that doesn't take itself too seriously, with some "knowing winks" thrown in by the writer. For example at one point when they are home for the evening, lawyer Ringwald's way-too-good-to-be-true "house boyfriend/client" says something improbable like "shall we see what's on Lifetime" and she comes back with something like "no I've got to work". There are a lot of courtroom scenes where Ringwald is an amusingly klutzy defense lawyer, including scenes with the "evil queen" prosecutor where the jury is comically sympathetic to over-emoting prosecution witnesses; its a bit like a low-rent "Legally Blonde" at times.

Have not seen Molly Ringwald,(Charlotte) in a very long time and enjoyed seeing her large brown eyes and the sparkle she always had with her personality and those expressions on her face. Charlotte plays a lawyer who has a very bad time trying to find her Soul Mate in life and gets dumped quite often. However, Mark Humphrey, (Gabriel) manages to drop into her life and things really start to change, except that Gabriel cannot remember a thing after an accident. This is really a comedy through out most of the picture and then it turns into a drama, and you begin to wonder just how this TV film is going to end. The ending will surprise you and all the actors in the film gave an outstanding performance. Great seeing Molly back on the Big Silver Screen where she belongs, what a talent.

The majority of these Lifetime "Made for TV" movies can be placed into two broad categories, for those involving the trials and tribulations of the adult lead(s): the actor/actress is menaced by somebody or some evil organization or group, and the story reveals these, usually in multiple crises at every turn, until resolved one way or another in the last 5 or 10 minutes; or, the story has the hero, or heroine (usually the latter) duped by a spouse, lover, or someone else who appears on the scene. In these instances, sometimes with murder or physical harm threatened during the proceedings, sometimes not, again the crises are resolved in the last minutes of the story. There is another aspect to these movies: you can usually see the big "revelation" coming, occasionally not. Here the former is the case.In this movie, Molly Ringwald has a bit more impressive "large screen resumé" than most of the female leads. And in this story, Molly is not threatened physically, but you know that this man who entered her life is not simply destined at the conclusion to begin visiting real estate brokers with her, to find a vine-covered cottage with a picket fence. Still, the actors are engaging, and this movie rates a 6 or 7 (mark it the higher). Depending on you other alternatives for an afternoon or evening, if you don't have an alternative program on t.v., or other activity, within the 8 - 10 range, give it a look.