Entertainment

‘Infidelity In Suburbia’ Isn’t Your Average Story

by Laura Rosenfeld

The latest movie to premiere on Lifetime this upcoming Saturday night, Infidelity in Suburbia, pretty much has it all. A marriage in trouble? Check. Infidelity? You bet. An affair gone wrong? Oh, yes. But is Infidelity in Suburbia a true story, as many Lifetime movies have been that have come before it?

Well, let's take a gander at the synopsis of the movie first to see if there's any indication that this film was based on true events, shall we? Here's how Lifetime's website describes what you're about to see in Infidelity in Suburbia:

"Infidelity in Suburbia," follows the story of Laura (Sarah Butler) who decides to take on a home renovation project to cure her boredom while her husband is at work and son is at school. Sparks fly between her and her contractor Vince (Marcus Rosner), and he soon fulfills Laura's forbidden dreams. But when Laura decides to end their affair, Vince's builds a secret room in Laura’s home where he can keep her all to himself.

Hmmmm, nowhere in there does it contain language like "based on a true story" or anything like that. Movies that are based on true stories tend to make note of that sort of thing if they do have some connection to real events, especially when they air on Lifetime, so I'm inclined to believe that Infidelity in Suburbia is purely fiction. The fact that Infidelity in Suburbia's trailer really plays up the salaciousness of the subject matter also doesn't exactly convince me that there's some truth behind this story.

There have been several real-life affairs that unfortunately turned deadly. Many of them were chronicled in the somewhat cheeky Investigation Discovery series Deadly Affairs, although they mainly had to do with a spouse murdering a spouse after finding out that he or she had been unfaithful. But check out your true crime show of choice, and you're likely to find a story that's more similar to what goes on in Infidelity in Suburbia.

This Lifetime movie definitely gives off similar vibes to several fictional films, too. Fatal Attraction, the iconic 1987 movie starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close immediately comes to mind since this film follows a woman's violent obsession with her married lover after he decides to break their tryst off. American Beauty is a film full of infidelity and misunderstandings about affairs that (spoiler alert!) ends in a murder. There are many other films out there that also revolve around affairs that go wrong and usually feature a tragic ending, such as Chloe, A Perfect Murder, and What Lies Beneath.

I don't know how Infidelity in Suburbia is going to end. We'll have to wait until the movie makes its debut on Lifetime on Saturday night in order to get the answer to that. But considering the final scenes of many movies with similar plots and themes that have come before Infidelity in Suburbia, I have a good feeling that something bad is going to happen at the end of this movie.