Ali Lear (Elisabeth Röhm) loses her family and eye sight in an accident. She gets assigned Jeff (Sam Page) to help her adjust. Jeff has spent his life with a blind mother. Jeff takes advantage of the situation and becomes a possessive voyeur.This is a well acted film, but didn't make much sense as his relationship with Ali could have escalated to another level making his sneaking around totally unnecessary. Not overly entertaining as it is slow developing and goes practically nowhere. Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.

The 'blind person in peril' sub-genre of film-making is actually quite a packed one. It really took off in the 1950s and '60s in Britain with the likes of Patricia Dainton in WITNESS IN THE DARK, although America made one of the best of the genre with Audrey Hepburn's WAIT UNTIL DARK. It comes as little surprise that the 2013 TV movie IN THE DARK can't hope to hold a candle to these earlier, similar films.The truth is that this is one of the most predictable films I've ever watched. It begins with a poorly-filmed car accident (featuring a cameo from STARSHIP TROOPERS star Patrick Muldoon) and follows up with a newly blind woman struggling to adjust to her surroundings and life. To help her, she's given a carer to assist with her day-to-day life, but all doesn't go according to plan...The problem I have with these television movies is that the protagonists are always so dim and that's no exception here. Elisabeth Rohm plays woman who's dim beyond belief, who can't work out what's staring her in the face. I trust that nobody in real life would really be as stupid as she acts here, and her stupidity is one reason that it's impossible to sympathise with her plight.The supporting cast are little better; the actors include a near unrecognisable Shannon Elizabeth (the American PIE films) and Elizabeth Pena (*BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED) and both are poor, although not as poor as Sam Page playing the carer. And, unforgivably, IN THE DARK is an extremely slow film with very little going on apart from lots of obvious and repetitive scenes. It only gets going at the climax, and then it's abruptly all over. It's pretty much a waste of time.

This movie is a little too hard to believe to be good, it can easily get irritating as you watch it.It starts out with an artist, Ali, getting in a bad accident and her husband and child are both killed. For someone who was just in such a horrible accident she is left in tip-top physical condition, no scars or injuries whatsoever except now she becomes mysteriously blind with no explanation given.Next, instead of hiring a qualified licensed aid to help her get around in her house and adjust to her new lifestyle, her doctor just tells her "here is the guy that will help you" and Jeff becomes her aid. Nobody really knows anything about him, no background checks were done, and once again he has no qualifications other than his mother was blind, and yet Ali has no problem immediately letting this man into her house, giving him a key, and giving him access to all of her money. Ali is also pretty much unaffected by the loss of her family. She cries here and there when they are brought up, but otherwise she seems quite chipper despite her situation.She also has no interest in getting a security system installed in her apartment even though there are concerns about her safety. There are security systems that will beep every time the door is opened so nobody can sneak into the house, key or no key. Luckily for Jeff she never got one, so he can just creep in and out and spy on her. Perhaps her hearing was also affected in the accident, or maybe just her common sense?As things progress Jeff becomes creepier and creepier, he cuts her husband out of her photos, starts taking secret videos of her, and becomes increasingly possessive, but Ali is hardly bothered. Her new neighbor friend Linda however does become a bit suspicious, but once she knows too much and starts to pry into her life too much, Jeff decides to get rid of her.After Jeff offs her in her apartment and leaves the body there for days, Ali decides to go investigate as she usually sees her friend daily but lately she's been missing. Having heightened senses from being blind, you'd think she would smell the decaying corpse as soon as she entered the apartment, probably anyone would, but she doesn't realize her friend is dead until she falls on the puddle of blood, which is curiously still soaking wet.If you can't already tell what the problems with this movie are I'll make it more clear- it's just lame. It isn't engaging enough for a suspense story and it's pretty hard to believe, almost silly at times because of the lack of believability. Jeff's backstory, which isn't revealed until the movie ends, is poorly thought out at best. The way he is defeated is also unlikely. And the acting is certainly nothing special (Jeff is especially cheesy at times).TV movies usually aren't the greatest, but there are much better lifetime movies out there. I'd recommend finding something else.

Found this review online:Lifetime Movie In The Dark: A Beginner's Guide To Being A Blind Woman 2 days ago by Jill O'Rourke0 Comments and 6 ReactionsShare a TipGuys, I might have found my favorite Lifetime movie ever in this week's In the Dark. After last weekend's snoozefest An Amish Murder, it was great to see the network get back to what they do best: suspenseful thrillers about how evil men are. That's the Lifetime I know! Our heroine is Alijandra (Alijandra! Alijandra! Ali-alijandra! Ali-alijandra!), Ali for short (played by Elisabeth Rohm), an artist whose husband and adorable little hobbit-haired daughter are tragically killed in a car accident that leaves Ali blind. The Evil Man of the Week is Jeff (Sam Page, whom you might recognize as Joan's terrible husband on Mad Men, Serena's professor boyfriend on Gossip Girl, or the co-star of one of my favorite J.Crew catalog covers), the man appointed as Ali's aid. She needs one, because according to this movie being blind is a lot like those old Sprite commercials with the "sublymonal" messages. Am I the only one who remembers those? The story is very reminiscent of Wait Until Dark. For those of you who, unlike me, didn't watch Turner Classic Movies religiously at age 14, Wait Until Dark is an Audrey Hepburn movie referenced in one of Blair Waldorf's Gossip Girl dreams. With me now? Basically, a blind woman finds herself in danger and must save herself. Ali becomes fond of Jeff, as evidenced by the fact that, even though she stumbles around her apartment after six months of being blind, she touches his face once and knows he's handsome. Impressive. However, we as an audience are soon clued in to the fact that Jeff is pretty unstable and creepy. Lifetime is very good at showing this (see: Fatal Honeymoon). Sam Page fortunately went to the Lifetime School of Evil Acting, where you learn to talk like a robot, smile at inappropriate times, and burst into fits of rage at the drop of a hat. A good example is when he sees that Ali's new friend Linda (Shannon Elizabeth) is over for breakfast, and she brought croissants. Jeff excuses himself and furiously crumples up the bag of bagels he'd brought. DAMN IT! CROISSANTS ALWAYS BEAT BAGELS! LINDA MUST DIE! (We'll get to that.) Turns out there are so many more creepy things a stalker can do if his victim can't see him there. Lifetime knew this, and they took advantage of it. Jeff tapes his face over Ali's husband's face in photos on the wall, which she of course can't see. He videotapes her taking showers. When Ali parts the clothes in her closet to pick out an outfit, he's there behind her sweaters, watching her. All just a few pieces adding up to best Lifetime movie ever. Jeff is so close to getting away with it, too, until Ali invites Linda over for dinner. First Linda brings sweet potato casserole. Always upstaging him with food! Then she sees the altered photos where he hid them in the bathroom. Something must be done about this. Jeff takes the casserole dish Linda conveniently left behind over to her apartment. For some reason Linda lets him in even though she now suspects he's a creepy stalker. He then proceeds to kill her with her very own casserole dish. So poetic. A few days go by, and Ali is craving some Linda time. Maybe she's sick of Jeff's bagels and wants some croissants. She calls and calls, but Linda never answers. Ali finally takes matters into her own hands and goes over to Linda's place, to find her dead. If only Ali had remembered to get that sweet potato recipe before… Later that night, Ali receives an ominous message from her doctor telling her that she looked into Jeff's background and found some disturbing things, because disturbing background check results always turn up a little too late. Suddenly Ali remembers every suspicious thing Jeff ever did, yet she still for some reason leaves her apartment door unlocked for him to come in. First rule of being a blind woman: invest in a deadbolt. So begins an edge-of-your-seat climax in which Jeff tries to attack Ali and she uses her blind woman experience to outsmart him. The most important tactic she uses? Spray paint his eyes so that he can't see either. Works like a charm. After Ali kills him (I think), she gets a guide dog. Probably would have been a better option to begin with, but no, Ali had to have her bagels! Let's hope this movie is a sign of things to come from Lifetime. The more creepy closet lurkers, the better, if you ask me. (Image: Lifetime) You can reach this post's author, Jill O'Rourke, on twitter.