User Reviews

2023's Engaged to Be Murdered is a Lifetime flick that's the sloppiest of whodunits. I mean gee whiz! Someone has to be accused of attempted murder. Someone has to be accused of stealing money from their employer. Someone has to be accused of thwarting a future wedding. Finally, someone has to be accused of undermining everything, you know the whole, unlawful kit and caboodle. Yup, even Perry Mason would have his hands full here.

Taking place in Seattle, WA (or in and around the area) and placing enough McGuffins to power a small country, Engaged to Be Murdered is about a son (Jack Finley played by Madison Smith) who brings home his sudden fiance (Erin Boyes as Olivia) to the disapproval of his rich mommy (Sarah-Jane Redmond as Amanda Finley).

That's just the outline because we the viewer also have to worry about other stuff, like the motivations of Jack's ex-girlfriend, Jack's ex-girlfriend's mom (her and Amanda are buds), Jack's uncle boss (who thinks Olivia might be a corporate spy), some goon trying to kill Olivia, and Olivia's loser brother (who just happened to pop in the picture). Whew, poor Olivia! All she wanted to do was get married to oily bohunk.

Watching "Engaged" is not necessarily an exhaustive experience, it's more of an eye-rolling one because everybody seems to be trying hard to reinvent the strife that is the Lifetime network wheel. It's like the director (Keegan Connor Tracy) is juggling a bunch of pins but dropping them repeatedly because she never learned to um, juggle effectively.

Sure the actors do their best to sell the scenes and sure, you eventually want to know the outcome after 90 minutes (that's baseline for the good old wine club). But there's this thing in cinema called continuity errors and Engaged to Be Murdered has enough but doesn't know when to relinquish them. Broken rules of "engagement".

Now I am not a strictly by the books guy but some old-fashioned traditions are special and deserve respect. It is highly important to let parents know when you're getting engaged. It is the 21st century and one does not need parents' permission to tie the knot, but still having them give their blessings is very nice and important.

What Jack did and how frivolous he was about it like oh it's nothing, mom will get over it eventually was totally wrong. From Amanda's perspective she was totally right to be the way she was when the news of her only son Jack's engagement was thrown at her face like a bucket of ice cold water. Amanda's suspicion was quite spot on considering how rich and successful the family business is. He was carrying on with Olivia for six months and got engaged to her and could not even be bothered to tell his mom he had met someone and she was special etc etc?

And Jackson telling his uncle about how his mother treats her like a teenager after their dad died. Well, he was exactly acting like a hot-headed teenager, getting engaged just after six months of their relationship and keeping it secret from his mother until he sprung it on her catching her offguard!

Now the movie itself was an above average Lifetime movie. Acting was good all round. The story was plausible. So yes it was a decent watch.

An interesting bit of trivia, both Erin Boyes and Madison Smith played psychos in their previous Lifetime movies (Waking up to Danger and Psycho Intern respectively). So it was nice to see them both play good guys instead of out of control psychos.

BTW the ending left the possibility of a sequel open, just like a few other Lifetime movies. Not all of them had sequels of course.

This story made absolutely no sense to me. Why would Caroline refuse to help Amanda with her plans to get rid of Olivia so that her daughter Rachel could get back together with Jack. If you've watched the movie you know why I'm asking this. I don't want to give too much away. But this was the only surprise to me in this story. When Olivia said that company funds were being embezzled and sent to Manilla, I knew immediately who in the company was the perp. So that was no surprise to me. Also, I was a bit confused as to why Olivia immediately accused Amanda of attacking her but never told the police that she had uncovered an embezzlement scheme within the company. That would have been the first thing that I would have told the police. I'm not the romantic sort. But I found it strange that a young engaged couple never kissed each other. Olivia never touched Jack. Jack did kiss Olivia on the forehead when she was hospitalized and kissed her on the hands once. But they never embraced. I don't care about seeing that kind of activity. But it was rather odd. Especially since they had known each other for such a short time and were planning to get married immediately. This couple were like two strangers. The acting was better than most Lifetime movies. But the story was uninteresting and nonsensical.

Only a short comment so as not to diminish anything - nothing more than to reflect that the craft, the acting and the directing show some solid moments - If you watch a lot of these it's not the best, but also far from the worst, and although It's an odd plot, that could have had some flushing out - I DO enjoy some good family disfunction and meddling, so there is some fun to be had with good directing choices and I have to give props to how the actors deliver on selling the script. So without obvious spoilers: Uncle Victor puts in a good, albeit short showing, there's not a lot that romantically develops between Olivia and Jack, but they are solid enough - and I believe the frenemous relationship between a convincingly haughty Amanda and great performance by a duplicitous Caroline enough to enjoy the clever switch to villainous monologue by Caroline and subsequent vicious cat fight, which for me is the most fun - there's bit of a gotcha that happens with Rachel, who does succeed in her job of creeping me out too- so there that. It's worth a lifetime watch.

The filmmakers of "Engaged to Be Murdered" (aka, "Meet My Mother") crafted a crackling good story of passion, ambition, corporate greed, and betrayal.

At the center of the action is the formidable matriarch Amanda Finley, who has doubts about her son Jack's engagement to Olivia. A well-developed set of secondary characters rounds out this gripping yarn.

There was excellent location footage of Seattle that is the backdrop for the story, and the performances were first-rate. It was the character interactions that were most compelling. It was clear at the outset that Jack and Olivia were genuinely committed to one another. The time-honored plot of a romantic couple overcoming obstacles was dusted off and carefully honed, especially through effective scripting.

Part of the suspense of the film was achieved by the characters of Amanda's best friend Caroline and her daughter Rachel, who once dated Jack. Those two, complex women may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of who is impeding the progress of Jack and Olivia in their desperate attempt to make it to their wedding altar unscathed.

This movie was ok, but could have been better. The story was weak and the villain was weak (although with this character's presence, what else were they there for? They were either a red flag or a dangerous character).

Once things starting happening to a certain character, I wrote them off as a villain. SPOILER ALERT------------------The mother character really lacked boundaries with her son and his relationships. That should have been dealt with more. I'm not a fan of how these movies allow characters to get away with rude, impolite, nasty behavior just because "they care."

This movie is pure Lifetime. There was one jump scare that got me, but I tend to react to those no matter what the movie. The corporate plot of the movie was pointless bc that was ultimately dealt with offscreen even though a lot of the incidents happening to the characters were bc of it. It was almost as if the writers didn't want the movie to boil down to unrequited love...which it did anyway bc who cares about the corporate story?

The actual villain and their monologue and subsequent follow up kind of wasn't shocking although they all played it off well. Talk about cuckoo for coco puffs.

It's a filler movie. Watch it once, but it's pretty bland, so I doubt it has a rewatch factor. Engaged to a Psycho is a better version of this movie (if you remove the B plot).