Pretty Little Addict (2016) Andrea Bowen, Keenan Tracey, Chelah Horsdal, Scott Lyster Movie Review

Pretty Little Addict (2016)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Andrea Bowen in Pretty Little Addict (2016)

Revenge Addiction

When her father died it hit Jennifer Phillips (Andrea Bowen - Zoe Gone) hard and she found her only escape from the pain was to numb it with alcohol. It was after another heavy session of drinking at a party that she stupidly decided to drive home only to hit Colin Brown (Keenan Tracey - The Stepchild), a promising track star. With it looking likely that Colin may never walk again Jennifer's mother, Donna (Chelah Horsdal - Sole Custody), has to deal with not only her daughter having to go in to rehab but Colin's parents planning to sue them. It isn't only Colin's parents who are affected by his injury and his older brother, Alex (Scott Lyster - Last Scene Alive: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery), sets out to get revenge for what Jennifer did to his kid brother.

That synopsis for "Pretty Little Addict" makes it sound like a straight forward movie, a daughter dealing with loss through alcohol makes a mistake and someone that mistake affected seeks to get physical revenge. But here is the thing; who do you sympathise with? Now maybe the writers of "Pretty Little Addict" did this intentionally or maybe it was a accidental but on one side you have Jennifer who although we feel for her because she has lost her father did wrong by driving whilst drunk. But then on the other we have Alex who also drinks and has to put up with emotional abuse, due to his father always being disappointed in him, wanting to get revenge. Basically we have two flawed people both who have reasons for their issues and drinking and we don't know who we should be more in favour of.

And do you know what, that set up is really frustrating because beyond these character issues "Pretty Little Addict" features some good writing. The whole set up of Alex's anger being stoked up because of his father's constant disappointment is well written, whilst the development of Jennifer's character when she heads to rehab is equally good, you will need to watch to understand. Okay it has to be said that when it comes to Alex's plan to get revenge it is a little shall we say convoluted but truth be told if it wasn't convoluted "Pretty Little Addict" would probably end up a bit tedious.

What this all boils down to is that "Pretty Little Addict" has its issues, pretty normal for a made for TV thriller. But it also has some good writing which makes it kind of frustrating that some good ideas end up kind of wasted in a routine, far fetcher thriller.


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