Nora Roberts might be one of my favorite authors so I was super excited when I saw that one of her books, Brazen Virtue, had been adapted for Netflix. The film changed its name to Brazen and stars Alyssa Milano and Sam Page. I watched the movie over the weekend and boy, do I have some thoughts.
This movie has everything – an 80s tv star, a murder mystery, multiple dominatrixes, and a home renovation. Toss in some Nora Roberts and what more could you want.
Alyssa Milano stars as Grace, a famous mystery writer who receives an urgent call from her sister Kathleen, asking her to come visit her in Washington, DC. Kathleen tells Grace that, having kicked her drug habit, she is now teaching at a high school. Kathleen has also been digging up dirt on her ex-husband and plans to blackmail him to allow her to start visiting with her son again. Grace meets Kathleen’s neighbor, a police detective named Ed (played by Sam Page) and is instantly attracted. After returning home from a date with him one night, Grace finds Kathleen strangled. She demands to be involved with the police investigation and is stunned to find out that Kathleen had been moonlighting as a dominatrix cam girl named Desiree.
What I liked:
I really liked the banter and the interactions between Alyssa Milano and Sam Page, especially when she tells him she knows who he is because she Googled him. I haven’t read the book yet so I don’t know if this great dialogue is from Nora Roberts or the individuals who adapted her book. Although, the book was originally written in 1988 and I don’t think Google was around at that time so I am guessing that banter is from the screenwriters. Whoever wrote it, it was great!
I love Alyssa Milano. I think her maturity as an actress has aged beautifully. I watched her when she was on Who’s The Boss and thought she was an icon then and I think she has just gotten better.
What I didn’t like:
Although I love Alyssa Milano, whoever was in charge of her hair and wardrobe needs to be fired. Alyssa Milano is not tall but her character kept wearing these baggy jeans that were cuffed around her calves/shins. They just were not flattering and made her look even shorter than she is. As her character is a famous writer, I would have thought she would have a better-looking and better-fitting wardrobe.
I also have to say I was not a huge fan of Alyssa Milano’s hair. I did not find the style that she wore it in for the majority of the movie to be especially flattering.
Additionally, at the end of the movie, there is a scene where Grace pretends to be Kathleen as Desiree in order to try to flush out the killer. When Kathleen dressed up as Desiree she wore a long brown wig as well as a mask in order to conceal her identity. Great! So, you would think that when Grace dressed up as Desiree, she would also wear the wig and mask. Sorry, but I am here to tell you that although she wears the mask, Grace makes a choice to wear her (blondish) hair in this weird topknot. I just didn’t understand, if she was pretending to be Desiree, why didn’t Grace wear Desiree’s wig? It made zero sense. Also, I hate to keep repeating this, but the topknot did not compliment Alyssa Milano at all.
The acting is…okay. It’s about what you would expect for a made-for-tv movie. I did think Alyssa Milano and Sam Page had great chemistry. I also really enjoyed Malachi Weir, the actor that played Ed’s police partner Ben. I would definitely watch a movie about him!
As I said earlier, Brazen Virtue was originally written in 1988 so there have been some updates to the movie. In the book, the victim is a phone sex operator, however, her profession in the movie is a dominatrix cam performer. I thought that was a fair decision to make, but then I wonder why they didn’t adapt a newer Nora Robert’s book, one where they wouldn’t have had to make so many changes. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 5 books by Nora Roberts that I would have rather seen made into movies and they wouldn’t have had to change a thing.
This movie is only 90 minutes but felt like 2 hours. To be fair, the movie is super cheesy and would probably fit in better with Lifetime‘s catalog of movies, but I still enjoyed it. If you disregard that a victim’s sister would never be allowed to work on her case due to the extreme conflict of interest, you might be entertained by this movie.
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