Emily Parker (Anne Heche) is a lawyer in New Orleans. She accepts a marriage proposal and an antique ring from Billy Hytner. Her assistant Jeanie (Eva Longoria) senses something weird about the ring. She starts to be haunted by a ghostly woman and encountering past transmissions of the moon landing. She meets Billy's parents (Kathleen Quinlan, David Andrews) and his mother is not supportive. Emily starts researching the origins of the ring.There is nothing scary. It tries to be a spooky little ghost story. It's functionally made. There are fine actors. They actually shoot in New Orleans which is nice. It's a flat little TV movie and nothing more.

Like a previous reviewer, I really wanted to like this movie. I tuned in because the promos mentioned James Van Praagh as the source for the storyline, and I was hoping to get some good and intelligent treatment of spirit communication.What a letdown.This was the same IL' thriller that almost totally ignores the real story, the story that should be told, the life after death story. I have seen very few movies that have the guts to go beyond the ordinary "bang-bang you're dead" plot and focus on what happens to the murder victim after the funeral.James Van Praagh has made a life (and one presumes a great living) out of talking to dead people, writing books about talking to dead people, and taking rich people on expensive cruises to exotic places where he talks to more dead people. That's cool for him, but I expected more out a movie about dead people that he produced.So why does this movie act like an ordinary yawner of a murder mystery that gives us absolutely diddly insight into the spirit of the victim? Couldn't we for once have a more intelligent treatment of this subject? If there are spirits, and as far as this movie was concerned, there are, then the spirit in this movie has a great story. She survived murder! So we really don't have to spend two hours in a melodrama to figure out who killed her. Let's get to the good stuff.What was murder like when she left her physical body? What happened when she realized that death was a transition, not a termination? What did she learn about being murdered after she realized that murder didn't kill her? I am so surprised that James Van Praagh gave his seal of approval to this annoying waste of time.

Doesn't anyone get tired of making these stupid movies? The ones where someone is contact by a ghost who was horribly murdered and this random person is expected to go throughout the picture, trying to convince people that she's been talking with this ghost and demands answers from total strangers (often neurotic strangers) who may know how she died or where her remains lie. It's a boilerplate story these days, and after the success and the thrills of the 'Sixth Sense,' is it really necessary to keep making these things? Kathleen Quinnlan, probably the only tolerable actress in the bunch (and Chris Sarandon as the widow of the dead girl) as the sinister mother-in-law-to-be were completely wasted in this predictable mess. Anne Heche, of course, took the lead and showed off her awful acting abilities as Emily Parker, host to the dead girl. The ending was pretty stupid. What a waste.

I wanted to like this movie. I did really. It tried hard. And why shouldn't CBS give us a spooky Sunday movie near Halloween? Still, with a feminine heroine in a new marriage, learning another family's secrets, it just seemed reminiscent of a classic Gothic novel (maybe it should have been a period piece - naw, everyone thinks those cost too much).There's a real effort in the direction to give an unsettling atmosphere, but it had a little too much quick cutting (to keep people interested who have short attention spans?). Anne Heche gives a more honest and effective performance than other actresses that might have opted for this project. But many in the cast - such as Christopher Guest and Jonathan LaPaglia - are playing characters that were not written with much originality. The plot makes sense, and there are the obligatory scenes of hallucination. Nice set design and photography. Yet Kathleen Quinlan and David Andrews seemed too young to be playing Jonathan La Paglia's parents.A distraction, a good effort, not bad - but not much that's different.If you like ghost movies with a murder mystery like this I suggest:David Koepp's "Stir of Echoes" (1999) with Kevin Bacon - based on Richard Matheson's novel (overshadowed because it was released near the same time as The Sixth Sense) or Sam Raimi's "The Gift" (2000) co-written by Billy Bob Thorton - the unexpectedly solid performances from a rather varied group of actors - Cate Blanchett, Giovani Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank and the late Michael Jeter - make this unique.