When she wasn’t crash-dieting or beating her son, Patty Duke partook, as so many actors did, in the time-honored TV movie tradition of crusading for justice. She challenged everything from unsafe schools (The Violation of Sarah McDavid) to the FDA (Fight for Life), while also making time to repeatedly solve her children’s murders (A Killer Among Friends and A Matter of Justice). As Barbara Parker in 1995’s When the Vows Break (also known as Courting Justice), her target is not her estranged husband — she already knows he’s a putz — but the morally compromised jurist presiding over their divorce.
Judge Wendell Adams (Robin Gammell, face fixed in a perma-scowl) opposes divorce so zealously in his family courtroom that he denies a petition based “on insufficient grounds,” arguing that marriage does not require love. Though Barbara and Art (The Silence of Adultery’s Art Hindle) started dating as teens and she worked alongside him as they built a multimillion-dollar construction fortune, she is awarded only 2% of their marital assets. She’s also granted alimony that’s unsecured and subject to revision on the whims of both Art — a financial abuser and obfuscator whose money is his only means of control — and Adams, a clear misogynist.
Naturally, she intends to fight back. But she’ll have to represent herself, with a bit of guidance from attorney Ben (Malcolm Stewart) and Nadine Litvak (Brenda Robins), a professor and expert on marital law whose lesbianism is never acknowledged but radiates from the screen with the intensity of a hundred Jane Lynches. Both recognize Barbara’s legal aptitude, which flourishes as she audits Nadine’s class and crafts her appeals. And, wouldn’t you know it, she’s looking for a new line of work anyway since real estate, which she turned to post-divorce, doesn’t quite pan out — though it leads to a cautious romance with Gene (Donnelly Rhodes), a kindly widower who works in escrow.
Loosely based — or so ABC claimed — on actual events, with “certain characters and scenes […] created for dramatic purposes,” When the Vows Break inevitably found a second home on Lifetime, alongside similar films like Because Mommy Works and The Price She Paid, all depicting nightmare scenarios thrust upon everyday women by a misguided American jurisprudence intractably rooted in sexism. The premise is serviceable but screenwriter Benita Garvin (Girl Fight, not to be confused with Karyn Kusama’s Girlfight) and director Eric Till (Voices from Within) don’t know what to do with it and fiddle instead with silly devices like Barbara’s passion for piloting small aircraft, which goes over like a lead balloon.
Their apathy is most obvious in a subplot involving Judge Adams: its twists are obvious from several miles away and even the more cynical among us will likely be surprised by the complete lack of effort put into his nonsensical final scene. Hindle, previously Duke’s artist lover in Before and After, is likewise saddled with a boorish caricature, while Rhodes — who played one of Blanche’s best suitors on The Golden Girls, blue collar Jake in season two’s “Diamond in the Rough” — is quite likable despite a schlocky subplot that goes all-in on mawkish melodrama. It’s one of several echoes in Vows of Judith Light’s Betrayal of Trust, a weightier movie in every respect.
If you’re looking for a more interesting divorce legal drama that’s (truly) based on a true story, Park Overall’s The Price of a Broken Heart might fit the bill. When the Vows Break, despite its fantastic title, is reserved for Duke diehards and fans of the ever-delightful Linda Dano, a welcome sight as Barbara’s best friend Helene. In one of their heart-to-hearts — the highlights of the film — Barbara says “My mother was what I called an armchair philosopher. She dispensed wisdom like candy. One of her favorite adages was ‘If you can’t spare your heart, spare your dignity.'” Duke, an actor so precociously talented that she won an Oscar at 15, emerges with hers intact, even though she can’t escape that sartorial scourge of the ’90s, a quasi-Blossom hat.
Streaming and DVD availability
When the Vows Break hasn’t made it to DVD and only currently streams on YouTube. Please report dead links in the comments and I’ll search for replacements.
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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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