Too Good to Be True (TV Movie 2003) Poster

(2003 TV Movie)

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10/10
painfully perceptive and scarily gripping
halpen56713 December 2005
I thought this was wonderful. It was that rare thing, a completely successful thriller - disturbing, gripping, and by the end really edge-of-the-seat stuff - that also managed to be psychologically complex. It was about an ex-husband (happily remarried to the statutory younger woman) who seems to have an ideal relationship with his ex-wife - to the extent that he even goes on holiday with his ex and their two young kids. He's the perfect 21st century liberal divorced father....Until that his ex-wife meets another man, when jealousy starts to kick in. And we see the caring ex-husband and father gradually becoming obsessed both with his ex-wife and her new bloke, and trying to turn her against him. And maybe he has a point - because she met him on the internet and knows very little about him....So is the ex-husband's obsession justified? After all, he needs to protect his kids from this stranger- and also his ex-wife....

The gradual tightening of tension is done with complete psychological conviction, and a painful - and painfully common - contemporary situation is pushed into highly disturbing, nightmarish territory.

It's so good it should be made into a movie instantly!!!
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how bout "too stupid to be real!"
mcfly-3123 September 2003
I just couldn't help it on this one. Having moved to the UK two months ago, none of the tv over here effected me. This thing, though, oh man. I must say the filmmakers did their job. As inane, unreal, and downright brainless as this story was, I couldn't turn it off. It deals with a couple who have been divorced for four years. When she finally moves on with a guy she met off the internet, her ex all of sudden loses his mind and starts obsessing about her. Why now??? He's married to a much hotter, younger brunette, and the fact that his sanity would unhinge four years down the line was the first head-slapper in the story. But it's not just him. His new wife, the ex-wife, her new lover, and even the kids(!) all are COMPLETE morons. The new wife doesn't mind the husband standing outside staring into space cuz he's hung up on the ex; the ex almost considers getting back with him after he slaps her!; she's a booze-swigging, cigarrette smoking smartass; her new guy snatches at her, spilling wine everywhere when she wants to break it off; and even one of the kids hounds the mom when she finally takes the dad's key back!!! I was yearning to throw eggs at the screen for every idiotic action a character would make. I will give the director this: she really knows how to build good suspense. Two scenes come to mind: the surprise in the alley, and the obligatory--but still tense--final confrontation. She really had it jumpy in an old horror movie fashion in the end. But far too many silly or just plain irrational behaviors (especially the Davison character) totally sink this otherwise interesting premise.
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10/10
The best of Peter Davison.
Sleepin_Dragon17 May 2020
A woman tries to move on with her life, and start seeing someone new, but her jealous ex husband isn't too keen for her to break away and start a new life.

I absolutely loved it, and twenty years on still enjoy it just as much. It's pulse racing, dramatic and edge of the seat viewing. I love how it deals with online dating in its earliest form, things have changed so much since then, Pell have totally desensitised.

I have given it a bold ten, because it is the drama that showed me the absolute pure brilliance of Peter Davison, not my favourite Dr Who, someone I always thought was good, I hadn't realised he was this good, it is an incredible performance, he's sinister, chilling, he shines enormously brightly here.

Fantastic, 10/10.
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