At the start of the film, Miss Verity Jane Hawkins is a young alcoholic residing in Los Angeles. She receives a fateful telephone call informing her of the death of her father, Richard, who has been supporting her financially from the family home in New Orleans. Miss Verity travels to the Big Easy where she will become enmeshed in domestic drama, murder, mayhem, and madness.
Miss Verity's father clearly died under suspicious circumstances. He was in perfect health, yet somehow died of (a) a heart attack and (b) an impossible tumble over the railing of his balcony, culminating in his death. Miss Verity's brother Jonathan, who is an attorney, smells a rat in the figure of Louise, the former family secretary who only recently has married Richard Hawkins.
A major problem with the film was the unlikable characters. With the exception of Brother Jonathan and his fiancée April, the characters were unpleasant, including Miss Verity. She has a perpetual chip on her shoulder that is supported by her constant sipping from a flask of vodka. But nothing can prepare an audience for the likes of the golddigger Louise Hawkins and her chip-off-the-old-block son Eric.
Brother Jonathan hires a private investigator named Gary Simms, who searches for clues in the death of Richard Hawkins. The compulsive eater Simms finds a mountain of evidence suggesting that Louise had drugged her husband to simulate a heart attack, then sent him over the balcony railing into his death spiral.
Another sleazy character is the attorney Eugene, who is the executor of Richard's will, yet carrying on an affair with Louise. They are plotting to embezzle millions from the trust left to Miss Verity and Brother Jonathan. Unfortunately, Jonathan dies on a boating venture, clocked on the head and sent overboard by Eric.
Miss Verity has an extremely abrupt transformation when April informs her that she is pregnant with Brother Jonathan's baby. Suddenly, Miss Verity swears off alcohol, decides not to sell the family home, and cries out in exultation, "I'm about to be an aunt!!!" This abrupt change in her character was just as unconvincing as the clumsy narrative and the over-the-top characters in one of the most diabolical mother-son combinations ever to grace a Lifetime film.
Miss Verity's father clearly died under suspicious circumstances. He was in perfect health, yet somehow died of (a) a heart attack and (b) an impossible tumble over the railing of his balcony, culminating in his death. Miss Verity's brother Jonathan, who is an attorney, smells a rat in the figure of Louise, the former family secretary who only recently has married Richard Hawkins.
A major problem with the film was the unlikable characters. With the exception of Brother Jonathan and his fiancée April, the characters were unpleasant, including Miss Verity. She has a perpetual chip on her shoulder that is supported by her constant sipping from a flask of vodka. But nothing can prepare an audience for the likes of the golddigger Louise Hawkins and her chip-off-the-old-block son Eric.
Brother Jonathan hires a private investigator named Gary Simms, who searches for clues in the death of Richard Hawkins. The compulsive eater Simms finds a mountain of evidence suggesting that Louise had drugged her husband to simulate a heart attack, then sent him over the balcony railing into his death spiral.
Another sleazy character is the attorney Eugene, who is the executor of Richard's will, yet carrying on an affair with Louise. They are plotting to embezzle millions from the trust left to Miss Verity and Brother Jonathan. Unfortunately, Jonathan dies on a boating venture, clocked on the head and sent overboard by Eric.
Miss Verity has an extremely abrupt transformation when April informs her that she is pregnant with Brother Jonathan's baby. Suddenly, Miss Verity swears off alcohol, decides not to sell the family home, and cries out in exultation, "I'm about to be an aunt!!!" This abrupt change in her character was just as unconvincing as the clumsy narrative and the over-the-top characters in one of the most diabolical mother-son combinations ever to grace a Lifetime film.