This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Laura Stone (Kelly Preston) is a college literature professor sleeping with one of her students. Daniel Stone (Ron Eldard) is a stay-at-home comic book illustrator. Their high school daughter Trixie (Britt Robertson) gets dumped by her boyfriend Jason Underhill. At a drunken party, she reconnects with him. She claims rape but nobody at school believes her. Police detective Mike Bartholomy (Michael Riley) investigates. The case turns. One night, a drunken Jason falls to his death. Trixie suspects her father due to a previous incident.This is a Lifetime movie. There may be some ambitions but I don't really like anybody or find the situation compelling. Jason needs to be more of a douche. Trixie is too desperate after getting dumped. The mysterious death comes to an unsatisfying resolution. I can stomach a standard Lifetime movie but this is somehow worst.

What are viewers expected to feel while watching this movie? Glad that the girl who falsely accused a boy of raping her and drove him to suicide got to live? Didn't feel it.Glad that there "must be" a tenth circle of hell for her to go to after hurting her family by lying to them and then going back to life? Glad that there's that circle of hell for her after she drove her beloved boyfriend to suicide based on lies and manipulation? Glad that the boyfriend died after he was "punished" for dumping that prize of a girlfriend Trixi? (nice name for someone so tricky and manipulative BTW)Sorry for the wife because she has a boring marriage and a house husband? Glad for her that she is breaking school rules by sleeping with her drug dealing student to make herself feel better about said boring marriage? Glad that she covered up for her daughters lies? Glad for her that her pesky daughter is out of her hair while she's doing what she wants?Glad that they can all go back to biding their time on earth before arriving at the tenth circle of theirs?I didn't feel any of that. I was waiting for them all to be hit by a bus while the boyfriend and school full of kids stood laughing at them. Films like this make it hard for real victims of rape to be believed. It also provides teasing fodder for other students at schools where these rapes happen.

Not as gripping as it could have been but the essence of Jodi Picoult's story is intact. An interesting aspect of the novel was the graphic novel intersecting each chapter, which explores the father's psyche. His conflicted feelings for wife and daughter are revealed vicariously through his illustrations and story-telling. His wife's obsession with Dante's Inferno, the class she teaches at university, becomes his obsession, too, since he explores the same theme through his comic book characters. Had this been a big budget film with animation telling this aspect of the story, it would have been visually intriguing! The father's sensitivity and artistic bent is an essential part of the central conflict and does not come across convincingly in this TV movie. On a superficial level, this film tells a story of a family in trauma, but the actors are not compelling enough to ring true. Any husband and wife who have struggled with raising a teenage child will probably agree this is a weak portrayal...but a young audience might identify with the teen angst of Trixie, the troubled young victim.

I first read The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult a few years ago and really enjoyed it and have since read it several more times. It is a very good story with really interesting twists and very fascinating and complex characters. I was a more than a little disappointed to discover that they were making it into a Lifetime TV movie.And just like I expected, despite the good story that certainly has the potential to be a solid movie, it was transformed into a cheesy and poorly acted Lifetime flick. As you watch, you feel indifferent towards the characters and bored with the clichéd plot. Amazing how this great book could be turned into yet another run-of-the-mill Lifetime movie with the same worn storyline and boring characters.