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Let's be realistic.

A Disappointing Continuation

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

add a vulnerable divorcée (Tim Matheson) and you have this story; the true story is based on Lisa Ann Rohne, who grew up poor, transient, and ran a ring of deception around Roger Paulson (Matheson).Overall, this is a good suspense story, although the naiveté of the victim a bit hard to believe. Tracy Pollan is very good as Rohne, who meets the Matheson character through personal ads. (Today it would be online dating, and we now have true crime based on that as well).It is very interesting to watch, in that Pollan consistently lies and manipulates Paulson, resides at his home and uses him to set up shop for her partner's credit card fraud, among other things. There are also supporting roles with Christine Ebersole, and Lee Garlington, who is excellent as Rita, Paulson's friend who suspects trouble.The issue of sociopathic behaviour is interesting, in general, and it would have been worthwhile for the writers to have explored Rohne's motivations, background, etc. Given the situation with online dating today, this is clearly a subject which merits more analysis, and we will certainly be hearing more about, in today's headlines. 9/10.

Although a well produced made for television movie, Dying to Love You reeks with low grade melodramatic splendor.The film opens up to Roger Paulson (Tim Matheson, looking much older than I remember him to be), who is a struggling businessman that leads an empty, lonely life after his wife Ruthie (who looks suspiciously like Roseanne Arnold) leaves him with the quickness. Now all Roger has is his cats....and his ad in the newspaper. Once his ad is answered, he calls Johnnie-Elaine-Lisa-oh it doesn't matter I'm whoever you want me to be-Lawrence. Then...they have phone sex.I'm not sure where you're from or when you were born, but I remember that phone-sex bit was played out by the late '80's. I'm sorry but that was trashy.Soon Roger and the broad hook up and have a whirlwind romance. They fall in love, visit the zoo to see gorillas, and then have some kinky sex with Roger's son in the other room. She ties him to the bed and seduces him.Roger is just so stupid that he does not realize that Johnnie-Eliane is just a bimbo that loves to sleep around. God forbid women only sleep with one man. Soon enough, strange phone calls begin to occur, Johnny Girl wants Roger to marry her with absolute quickness, and she keeps ranting and raving about her ex-husband who used to beat her. It's funny to see Roger believe her through all this stuff. That's until a frumpy co-worker tells him to go snooping through her belongings like a nosy housewife. He takes her crappy advice and lo and behold, he finds a suitcase crawling with fake ID cards and wigs and guns and a crossbow. He immediately takes the suitcase to the police and has her arrested. Even though all this jazz, he still loves the dumb broad. She tells so much lies, it seems her tongue will catch fire if she tells the truth once.Roger goes on with his life and meets an ugly woman named Angela who looks like something off of Gremlins 2. She has a child as well and Roger takes quite a liking to her. But something inside Roger's subconscious keeps him connected to Lisa Rohn (if that's even her real name) and he keeps going back to see her.Now Lisa is the "ex that won't go away" as she "earns" herself a get out of jail free card and shows up at Roger's doorstep and his son Matt is so busy trying to check her out, he pours juice all over the floor. IL' Rog is so stupid, he throws Lisa out and doesn't even change the locks. Boy, if all people were that stupid, I wouldn't even be writing this review. The ending of this movie is so corny, you won't believe.Tim Matheson is a Made-for-TV-Movie king. he just looks like such a dawm mummy in this movie. He's a little wooden and stiff. The dazzling Tracy Pollan works well with her role and her trampiness rings true. She is extremely beautiful and I do see what Michael J. Fox sees in her. This movie is great to watch when you're on that late night tip, but then again, you might fall asleep, considering how dull and bland it is.

"Dying to Love You" is based on a true crime story that happened in the early 1990s, in the Washington, DC suburbs. The film's story line is faithful to actual events, as published in a paperback book on the crime, "Deadly White Female" (1994).The real Lisa Rohn was born Lisa Ann Miller in northern California. Raised in a trailer park-resident dysfunctional family, she married at 16 to a sailor, Steven Rohn. When the marriage fell apart, she drifted into prostitution, and accumulated a string of arrests in the San Francisco area. While working the streets, she learned to steal everything from money to credit cards from her clients. Ultimately, she headed east with a partner in crime, Raymond Huberts, and the two ran a very successful identity-theft and credit fraud scheme.When Huberts got caught, Lisa was on her own. She took a job using one of her favorite aliases - Johnnie Elaine Miller, which happened to be the name of an older sister who had died in an accidental shooting in 1983 (believed by friends to have been a suicide).It is here that the movie begins. Rohn, aka "Elaine," had developed a keen ability to recognize and exploit vulnerable men, and when she answered an ad placed by Roger Paulsen in the Washingtonian magazine, she knew she had found her mark.The movie is an accurate re-telling of real events - if anything, it understates both Paulson's naivete and unscrupulousness of Rohn.The acting is good, and the story well-written, making this one of the better made-for-TV movies. Actress Tracy Pollan, who plays Rohn in the movie, told the Los Angeles times that the film should make people "think twice" before answering personals.

Today's pulp novels seem to be ubiquitous, toss-it-out & forget about them TV movies. "Dying to Love You" is equivalent to the best pulp novels of the 40s & 50s by people like James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Patricia Highsmith, Dorothy Hughes, Cornell Woolrich, etc. No great melodramatics, no deep message, no glamorous hero or romantic heroine. Just a gritty, menacing & very scary story right out of today's (& yesterday's & tomorrow's) headlines. Very well made, very well cast & as sweaty & nerve-wracking a 90 minutes or so as I ever want to spend watching the screen. Kudos to all involved!