If there’s anything more enjoyable than a terrible wig in a TV movie, it’s a terrible wig atop the head of beloved superstar Loni Anderson, who brought us both my favorite mother-daughter prostitution film, My Mother’s Secret Life, and my favorite unnecessary remake of a Barbara Stanwyck classic in Sorry, Wrong Number. In The Price She Paid, a 1992 CBS telefilm that found a second home on Lifetime, she wears a shaggier, peroxided version of Patrick Duffy’s Daddy ‘do that blinds you as it draws you in, as if to ensure your attention doesn’t wander.
Anderson fans can be forgiven for wondering whether The Price She Paid is a biopic about her many financial disputes with Burt Reynolds, whom she was soon to bitterly divorce. The answer, sadly, is no. It’s about the emotionally bruising and politically charged custody fight her Lacey Stewart, single mother to 12-year-old R.T. (Coleby Lombardo), is plunged into when the boy’s father, her rapist, is paroled. And I’m serious when I say that Anderson, typically faulted here for her vacant stares and robotic delivery, acquits herself nicely when the screenplay serves up something meaty.
Price’s first half is straightforward drama, with Lacey ‘coming out’ to R.T., best friend Marlene (Candy Clark) and boyfriend Dan (Stephen Meadows) after years of concealing her painful past. There are early hints of trouble when Marlene is dismayed to learn that Lacey’s attacker, Keith Welles (Tony Denison), was imprisoned for his crime. “Well, it’s against the law, you know,” Lacey reminds her, to which Marlene replies “But still…” Only after Lacey explains the origins of the horrible scar near her throat does Marlene reconsider her position.
It is a feature of all telefilms about sexual assault—as it is all too often in real-life—that survivors will be revictimized by the legal system, and The Price She Paid is no different. Anderson’s most powerful scene comes when a family court judge (Aixa Clemente) infuriatingly deems both Lacey and her convicted rapist “equally credible witnesses” and grants him conditional visitation rights. Erupting in anger as she again reveals her scar, Lacey shouts, “How can you do this? I might have expected this judgment from a man, but you—do you just stop being a woman because you’re wearing a black robe? You get raped sometime and see how it feels. You get raped and then tell me I have to share my child with this animal!”
In its second half, The Price She Paid abandons Lacey’s legal crusade and detours sharply into suspense. That isn’t a problem for director Fred Walton (When A Stranger Calls), who knows his way around a cat-and-mouse thriller. But the screenplay’s inability to take sexual assault seriously for more than 30 seconds at a time is too colossal a hindrance to overcome. Disappointingly, cowriter Phil Penningroth learned nothing from this failure and later scripted Paula Abdul’s Touched by Evil, one of the worst-ever TV movies about rape.
Lacey’s jeopardy is entirely dependent on lavishly improbable scenarios, like Dan “having a great time” with his girlfriend’s assailant when he supervises a court-ordered custody visit. Or Marlene being so desperate for male attention that she’s vulnerable to Keith’s sociopathic charms even after Lacey cries on her shoulder about the viciousness of the crime and the pain of bearing her rapist’s child. Few of The Price She Paid’s most pivotal decisions add up, like Lacey retaining a pit bull lawyer and not alerting him to Keith’s ongoing threats of violence against her (and her clueless son).
Much as Anderson was thwarted in showcasing her full range, Denison, best known for putting bad guys behind bars on The Closer and Major Crimes, is foiled by the script. His smirking villain is so awash in cartoonish machismo that he’s like truck nuts brought to life. And then, in the movie’s finest twist, artfully filmed by Walton, Lacey is summoned to a meeting with her lookalike, Eugene (Geoffrey Gann), Keith’s jailhouse boyfriend who wants him returned to prison. He shares details of Keith’s diabolical plan and offers some timeless advice more genuinely helpful than anything she’s been told by friends: “Your lipstick’s a little too pale if you don’t mind my saying. I’d go with a touch of red.”
While “The Price She Paid” wasn’t based on a true story, it depicts a common scenario that you can read more about here.
Streaming and DVD availability
The Price She Paid has been available to stream on Amazon in the past but not currently; it’s not been released on DVD. As of this writing, you can find an unauthorized copy on YouTube.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
A quick note for anyone who finds this review while looking for information about Geoffrey ‘Geoff’ Gann, who also performed drag under the name Karen Dior: I’m using male pronouns because his entry on the AIDS Memorial page says “male-identified female impersonator,” and because other remembrances of Gann I’ve found elsewhere (that were written by friends and acquaintances) used male pronouns even though IMDb does not.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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