The Case of the Silenced Singer

So, The Silenced Singer.

Wow.

This was a movie with a very interesting and unique twist, in that we saw many little flashbacks of the murder victim’s life after her death. The movie seemed to be trying to make the audience like the character, after the opening scenes depicted her as quite the diva and rather unlikable. The other characters, also, kept trying to put her on a pedestal even in the same breaths they were telling rotten things she’d done to them.

As Perry said, it was confusing and didn’t seem to make sense.

The resolution was most certainly unexpected. I was worried for a long time that it was going to be yet another case of the friend not really being a friend. Instead, the friend was very loyal to the end and considered herself a true friend.

The singer having an inoperable brain tumor that was causing her to act out, and her deciding to have an assassin kill her in order to keep her from hurting the people she loved due to the tumor . . . totally unexpected and quite heart-breaking. I never would have guessed something like that, although I did briefly wonder if it would indeed turn out that she had hired the killer for some reason. After seeing the twist used before in things, I sometimes keep it in mind as a possibility.

The assassin was certainly a repulsive sort. I think this is the first time I can remember one of the movies turning out a double body count, even though that’s something that happened now and then in the television series. I wonder why the poor niece wasn’t shown at all after her aunt was murdered.

I must say I was relieved that Dorothy and the Tinmen were not shown performing, after the description given of them.

And then we have the girlfriend of the movie formula, which gets old really fast. I am so glad the television series didn’t do something similar. This girl was kind of an interesting character, although being more on Ken’s side, I found it irritating when she hit him and was snippy with him. He did lie to her about who he was, but I don’t recall him ever giving her any real hope about her songs; he seemed to be careful to focus on the guy he was after. On the other hand, I did like that she believed in the guy and didn’t immediately fall for all the negative things being said about him, but I imagine she was interested in him more because of what she hoped he would do for her than actually being interested for him.

Della didn’t have much screentime here, either. But oh my goodness, how I adore the deep blue she was wearing!

Vanessa Williams really did a good job as the titular character. I can pretty much take her or leave her in general, but I do enjoy her singing when I’ve heard it. Her acting was very believable, showing all facets of the character. I was repulsed by her in the beginning and then confused and admittedly intrigued in the flashbacks.

I didn’t really know any of the other guest-stars in this one. I was very moved by the performance of the actress playing the assistant and best friend, though, especially the final revelation scene.

Overall, a nice movie with a really shocking and saddening twist. That poor husband. I felt sad for him in the final scene as he was trudging away, weighed down by everything that had just been revealed in court, and Perry and Della seemed to already be shifting gears to not think about him. It left me a little cold for them to be cheerfully talking about going somewhere fun while you could still see the husband walking away in the distance.

And of course, Ken was going to have a date with the girl, who finally stopped being snippy with him. I imagine she was never seen again, but there was probably another girlfriend of the movie in the next installment. I realize a lot of television series did similar things and had multiple oneshot girlfriends for the stars, but it’s still rather eye-rolling to see it pretty much every single time. Especially when the original Perry television series didn’t feel the need to do it.

Ah well. I enjoyed the movie anyway and look forward to tonight’s.