Hush: Notorious
P.I.G
Hush tells the tragic story of Callie: a small-town girl of modest means, a humble girl from a humble background, a simple, innocent girl whose only crime in this life was falling for The Wrong Guy.
Love came calling when she was just eighteen, and he was a more seasoned twenty-five. Alas, he didn’t share her dream of getting hitched and staying put in Anytown, USA; when she got knocked up, he refused to do right by her, choosing instead to shag ass out of town to go practice medicine in The Big City.
Callie couldn’t face life as an unwed teen mother in that town without pity–and without Greyhound, apparently–so before the bad doctor left, she made one final request: Sneak me into Random Medical Clinic, she begged, and abort our unwanted love baby yourself.
He complied.
This would be more than enough nightmare fodder for most people in the Western world, but life wasn’t done with Callie–not by a long shot.
For ten long years after that, she stayed in Anytown–no exit, remember?–waiting tables, banging losers, and enduring the scorn and disapproval of residents who didn’t live on the actual physical Wrong Side of the Tracks.
(Seriously. The movie doesn’t let even a static shot of her building go by without a mournful train horn bleating in the background.)
But then, sunshine through the clouds: her wayward lover returned. Yes, all right, fine, so he returned with his prissy, barren wife in tow, but he returned, and with him–with them–the glittering, golden key to Callie’s happiness: a fertilized embryo, waiting to be surgically implanted in Wifey at her earliest convenience.
All Callie had to do was lift Wifey’s ID and boost a cheap Halloween hooker wig from Walgreens, and she was good to go. After all, she and Wifey were practically twins.
Sure, there was an outside chance that the happy couple would suspect her, but how likely was that, really? Anybody could’ve stolen their embryo. Accusing the “doppelganger” who knew all about their plans, had access to Wifey’s ID, ingratiated herself to the couple and was openly hung up on Hubby even now was just, like, racist or something.
And pregnancy suited her, besides.
After years of stagnating in Anytown, she became a real go-getter, determined to have only the best for her child: she enlisted Hubby as her doctor and took full advantage of this intimacy, letting him undress her for her exams, giving him backrubs when he looked a bit peaked; she took Wifey’s advice about finding a better job and slapped on the Corporate Slut ensemble that came with her Walgreens hooker wig, looking to break in to real estate.
And okay, so maybe she also randomly mutilated Wifey’s cat, and she kind of bashed the realtor’s brains in with a shovel after she got laughed out of the office–being a hard worker is not the same as having a real estate license, Puddin’–but what pregnant woman hasn’t done something a little crazy?
Yes, at long last, it was Callie’s time to shine. It was true that Wifey had started to suspect her, but she couldn’t prove anything, and Hubby at least stayed on Callie’s side.
And okay, so maybe then Wifey straight-up burned Callie’s GD house down to manipulate her into moving in with she and the Hubs–keep your enemies and your stolen embryos closer, etc.–but she and Hubby never were the brightest bulbs on the marquee.
(I mean, Jiminy Christmas: Hubby thinks adoption is cruel, since an adopted child can never know his biological parents. You know, because they totally get to if you leave them in the orphanage forever.)
Under the Not-So-Smug Marrieds’ constant care and supervision, Callie enjoyed all kinds of new privileges and rights, from passive-aggressive jibes at Wifey to making righteous preggo sexytime eyes at Hubby to having overly familiar conversations with Wifey’s Mom in the bathroom while going to the toilet.
They had some good times, Callie and Wifey’s Mom… right up till Callie lost herself a little bit in the unfamiliar magic of female companionship, and spilled almost every bean she had right there in the conversation pit.
Then, an impossible choice: carry on as if she were trying to steal some other barren woman’s husband, or exploit Wifey’s Mom’s peanut allergy and strong-arm her into eating tainted sponge cake.
Advantage: cake.
Soon it became clear to Callie that we all live and die at the whims of a cruel and unforgiving god. She couldn’t hope that Hubby would have the courage to leave Wifey of his own accord. Nor indeed could she hope that Wifey would step aside quietly out of respect for Callie’s prior claim on Dr. Feelbad.
There was only one thing to do: have the stupid baby, wait till Hubby went to work, then threaten to kill that darn brat if Wifey didn’t pack a bag and get the hell out.
Anyway.
From then on in, the movie is a masterwork of not-without-my-daughtery, fire poker thumpery, accidental stabbery and hardcore what-the-effery that is both exactly what you’d expect and not what you expected at all.
Is Hubby’s obvious attraction to Callie and history of ragingly inappropriate behaviour toward her ever even acknowledged? Does anybody ever wonder what the heck happened to the realtor? Do we ever find out what made Wifey think it was Okay to bring a lifelong indoor cat to the country and force it to stay in the barn in the dead of winter?
No.
Sorry.
NB: this Lifetime classic is not for sale. Do not be fooled by the Gwyneth Paltrow movie of the same title, nor the movie called Hush Little Baby, which also stars Victoria Pratt (TV’s Callie.) Say your prayers and eat your vegetables, and hopefully you will catch it on TV, like I did. AGAIN AND AGAIN.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
Tori Spelling is truly the Valerie Bertinelli of our generation.
I don’t know why Tori Spelling never acts anymore (unless you count the manufactured drama of reality television.) It’s not like she’s bad at it, or it actually matters if people are bad at it, mostly.
Which reminds me: have you seen Trick? It’s very sweet and so I think you would like it.
When I saw Tori Spelling in the picture, I knew it was Melodie’s post.
I caught the end of this movie (firepoker scene)not too long ago. The cheesey overacting is addictive. I hope I can catch the entire movie soon.
Flatterer.
I hope you can see it, too. Hubby is the worst person in the world. Seriously, you’ll be blown away again and again by how horrible he is. And yet these women are fighting over him. It’s mental.
I thought she did a great job in The House of Yes. She really isn’t a bad actress, she just plays one on TV.