His Secret Family

IMDb
Sarah was living the perfect life with her husband, Jason and their son Brandon until... Jason simply disappears! Days of searching turn into weeks of agony for Sarah and her son Brandon. To make matters worse, Sarah's son suffers from a rare genetic disease and only Jason's DNA can save him. When Sarah finally tracks down Jason, he sets out to make sure Sarah doesn't ruin his secret life and expose his dangerous past.



Lifetime
Sarah was living the perfect life with her husband, Jason and their son Brandon until… Jason simply disappears! Days of searching turn into weeks of agony for Sarah and her son Brandon. To make matters worse, Sarah’s son suffers from a rare genetic disease and only Jason’s DNA can save him. When Sarah finally tracks down Jason, he sets out to make sure Sarah doesn't ruin his secret life and expose his dangerous past.


Crushable

Last night’s Lifetime movie starred Haylie Duff as a woman named Sarah who grows suspicious of her husband. No, it wasn’t called Til Death Do Us Part. It was called His Secret Family, and thankfully it made a lot more sense than Til Death Do Us Part. (But that’s not exactly hard.) I do wish they didn’t take so long to reveal the secret family to us, though. Especially since we already knew it existed considering, well, the movie’s called His Secret Family. There were also a whole lot of missed opportunities and dropped storylines, but we’ll get to that.

Sarah and her husband Jason (David O’Donnell) live in a huge lakehouse with their son Brandon and their adorable golden retriever. (I was convinced something was going to happen to the dog, because otherwise what’s the point? But thankfully he ended up being the least injured and/or traumatized character in the whole movie.)

Sarah is like so many other Lifetime wives in that she has no clue what’s going on in her husband’s life. He’s always away on business trips as a pharmaceutical rep, but the bills are piling up and she’s worried about losing the house. Jason does that typical Lifetime husband thing where he tells her it’s not for her to worry about, and they’ll do fine as soon as a few of his mysterious “deals” are finalized.

Meanwhile, Brandon has respiratory problems that are getting worse, and he has an appointment to see a genetic specialist. But damn, it’s at the same time Jason was planning to leave them forever. Er, I mean, he has a very important business meeting. Jason promises he’ll make it to the appointment, but of course he never does, and he also doesn’t answer his phone when Sarah calls him.

That kinda sucks, because she just found out that Brandon has a rare genetic disorder that weakens his immune system, and he needs a bone marrow transplant. It will most likely come from a family member. Wow, how convenient that his father has a secret family, likely with half-siblings who can help cure Brandon’s disease. Except never mind, the movie will totally ignore this perfect opportunity to tie things together.

It’s been several hours without hearing from Jason, and Sarah still hasn’t figured out that he has another family. Jesus, get with it, lady. She calls the company he works for to see if he’s at corporate headquarters, and she’s told that there’s no one by his name working there, and that someone named David Marcus handles his business. He also has a receipt for a PO box in Santa Monica. Oh, and would you look at that, when she tries to send an email to him it fails to go through, and he’s also deleted his Facebook page. Despite all of this, Sarah still prefers the “He’s dead in a ditch somewhere” explanation to the “He’s been lying to me and left me forever” explanation.

She goes to the police station, where there’s conveniently a detective who once knew her late father. He asks about Jason’s family, and Sarah says his parents died and his “sister” is a recluse whom she’s never met. She calls the sister, who’s helpfully listed as “Pamela – Jason’s sister” in her phone, and says it’s been a long time since they’ve spoken. Pamela apparently doesn’t know who the hell Sarah is. So is she actually Jason’s sister, but knows him by his other identity, or did he give her a random lady’s number? Either way, why is Sarah acting as if they’ve spoken before? WHY IS THE SISTER EVEN A PART OF THIS MOVIE?

The detective and his partner show up at Sarah’s house to ask her some questions about her husband. Most of them have to do with whether or not something is wrong in their relationship. Despite just finding evidence that her husband has been lying and/or hiding something from her, she gets very offended and insists they have a “perfect” marriage. Then after they leave she cries for a little while to some sad piano music. What a terrible time to find out that she’s not a match for bone marrow and they really need to check Jason’s side of the family. Too bad he’s missing, huh?

Fast forward to a month later, and the detectives are at Sarah’s house to search it for a third time. This time they’ve discovered that her husband was having an affair with a woman named Amanda, and she was found dead wearing one of Sarah’s bracelets. Who is Amanda? Is she the secret wife? Why did he kill her? Why is he borrowing jewelry from one lady to give to another? What a cheapskate.

Sarah is in the middle of telling her sister that she’s probably going to lose their huge fancy lakehouse when she sees Jason on the news. From across the room. And he’s in the distant background facing away from the camera. Wow, it’s a good thing Sarah had the news on in the background and that she happened to be looking up at that moment and that she has a DVR to rewind it and also that she has BIONIC EYES. The news was broadcast from Santa Monica, which is where Jason’s PO box is.

So obviously instead of calling the police, she takes matters into her own hands and drives to Santa Monica, where she waits outside the mailbox place until he shows up with another woman. She follows them to their big fancy house. What makes Sarah realize that Jason has a secret family is the “stupid” honor roll sticker on his car. Excuse me, there is nothing stupid about being on the honor roll, thank you very much.

Sarah comes back the next morning and waits until Jason has left so she can ring the doorbell and pretend to be a realtor looking to sell the house. Instead of being like, “No, sorry, we don’t want to sell the house, bye,”
Jason’s David’s wife Emily (Jennifer Aspen) is like, “Sure, come on in and let me show you our entire house while telling you the exact ages of all my children and describing what a perfect family we are with our movie nights and our dinners in our beautiful dining room.” Sarah realizes that
Jason David was with this woman first, and she’s actually the secret family. TWIST.

What a perfect time for
Jason David to come back home because he forgot something and see the wife he thought he’d abandoned forever sitting in his living room pretending to be a realtor. He makes up an excuse for Emily to leave the room so Sarah can tell him he has to come home and help their ailing son, and for him to pretend he’s never met her before. He kicks her out of the house, telling his wife she was trying to steal something. Luckily Sarah left one of Jason’s business cards on the table with her phone number written on the back for Emily to see.

Sarah tells her sister to watch Brandon while she goes to the police to report what she’s discovered. She tells them that if
Jason David killed Amanda, he’ll probably kill her too. Okay, but who is Amanda? Were two ladies really not enough for him? Why did he kill her? Did she find out about his two families? Why doesn’t this movie explain things? The cops tell Sarah they have to follow the rules to catch
Jason David, but she’s not having any of that, so she runs off to do some more Scooby-Doo-ing.

Meanwhile,
Jason David confesses to both wives over the phone that he has two families, saying things like “it just happened” and “it wasn’t necessary for you to find out” and that it “got easier and easier” not to tell them. He makes it very, very clear he’s going to kill Sarah and Brandon, saying “it’s not rational to have two families, so one of them has to go.” Oh, and you’re just coming to this conclusion now? After
Jason David tells Emily that his other family will be “erased,” she calls 911.

The cops head to Sarah’s house, but unfortunately not before she and
Jason David have a fight in her kitchen with him pointing a gun at her and telling her to take him to Brandon. Sarah manages to get away and hops in one of their boats. Unfortunately she didn’t plan ahead and untie the other boat from the dock and/or drain the fuel. But if she’d done that we wouldn’t have this exciting nighttime boat chase, would we?

Before
Jason David gets in the boat, he makes sure to shoot Sarah’s detective friend. Don’t worry, he apparently just needs an arm sling and he’ll be fine. Fine enough to help his partner arrest
Jason David when he runs out of gas and gets to shore.

Sarah is okay, and she reunites with Brandon at her sister’s house. She tells him that his daddy’s mind is sick but he’s going to get help, and also that he’s going to help Brandon  get better. Umm, how? I’m pretty sure you can’t force a prisoner to donate his bone marrow, and
Jason David made it pretty clear he didn’t give a damn about Brandon. Maybe it would make more sense for Sarah and Emily to become friends and for her oldest son to help Brandon like I already suggested? Speaking of Emily, what happened to her? And how is Sarah making money now that her husband’s in prison?

Oh, we’re just going to watch them go out on the boat and not answer any of those questions? Okay.

Full Movie on HDmovie14