A Deadly Adoption

The joke here is that this is a Lifetime movie written by longtime SNL head writer Harper Steele and starring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig. Importantly, it’s not a parody of a Lifetime movie, or at least it’s not any more self-parody than any other entry in the well-worn genre. It does slightly tip its hand in a few places (especially the final scene), but mostly all involved do a surprisingly good job of playing it completely straight, working with a characteristically tiny budget and filling out the cast with unknowns. I’m struggling to think of a precedent for this particular sort of extratextual comedy, and I do admire it for that, but its insistent adherence to the Lifetime formula otherwise relegates it to the same empty calories as its source material.