Smallscreen Reviews

Review: The Client List, buttered monkeys and beauty queen dilemmas

By April MacIntyre Jul 18, 2010, 6:26 GMT

06/25/2010 - Jennifer Love Hewitt -Nokia Live Theater - Los Angeles, CA, USA © David Gabber / PR Photos

Lifetime's latest TV film "The Client List" stars Jennifer Love Hewitt as Samantha Horton, a struggling ex-beauty queen mom whose husband can no longer support the family, and they are reduced to desperate measures.

Hewitt's character is a Texas high school beauty who married her sweetheart, and life was suppose to be super swell. Reality bites and Samantha finds a way to earn from her looks while keeping the nature of her employment a secret, until a public bust at the massage/prostitution parlor where she works.

“The Client List” is based on a true story, as Hewitt plays Horton, a married mother of three with a photographic memory and no degrees or formal training in anything except false eyelash application.

Husband Rex (Teddy Sears) injured his knee and can’t get a construction job and Samantha must return to the workforce, or the family faces foreclosure and no Pop Warner football league money for the boy.

Cybill Shepherd shines as Cassie, Sam's momma, a perfect foil who rips some snorting bon mots like "I'm so hungry I could eat a buttered monkey" and waxes pubic hair for a living. She is portrayed as a classic Southern belle mother who filled Sam's head with silly beauty Queen ideas instead of preparing her for life and all the pitfalls.

In desperation, Sam saunters into a strip center massage center to apply for work, and after a bit of an eye-opening shock and a night to think about it, takes the job after she realizes there is no other way to get cash quickly.

She stays on, resolving to quit when she gets her finances straightened out but they are so in the hole, that day isn't coming for a while. Plus, she's really really good at it! Meanwhile, her husband and her mother are relieved the screws are off them for money and they all start to enjoy life again.

Hewitt bites the bullet, shows up for work and talks to her confessor "angel" who rides center dashboard. Sam chit chats the Johns and remembers the little details that make her oh so darlin' and pure cat-nip to the attention-starved men, who reward her with repeat business and bling. Sam is TOO good at her job, and her dance card is non-stop daily.

Soon the servicing grind gets to her, and one client offers her some cocaine. Initially it's the cure for her energy drain. Then cometh the dark under-eye circles, bitchy meltdowns and discovery in her purse during the vice bust.

There are flaws in the film, mainly too many close ups of the metal angel on Sam's dashboard and the sanctimonious ineffectual husband who can't get it together to earn enough to take care of his family. Also the overall heavy handed morality of the piece. If this were in Nevada, adults selling sex to other adults in a hygienic and regulated environment wouldn't be an issue. Post-arrest, Sam is pilloried and shamed, then the angry wives come a'calling for sex tips after church to keep their dogs in the home kennel. A banana tutorial is involved.

Overall, "The Client List" is a fun chick film to savor and timely considering the crappy economy and real time money issues so many are facing.