The Lost Wife of Robert Durst (2017)
Directed by Yves Simoneaux
Written by Bettina Gilois, Matt Birkbeck
Starring Jesse Hutch, Katherine McPhee, Daniel Gillies
Release Date November 4th, 2017
The Lifetime movie has become synonymous with low-budget, high-camp, gossipy trash. Though the network has worked to try and buy back some respectability with more ambitious, true-life stories and slightly bigger budgets, that gossipy, trashy style of storytelling remains the network’s bread and butter. I sound like I am complaining, and I probably should be, but the fact is, the gossipy, high-camp trash that is The Lost Wife of Robert Durst is insanely watchable; the definition of a pleasure to feel guilty about.
Katherine McPhee stars in The Lost Wife of Robert Durst as Kathie, the first wife of the scion of New York Real Estate moguls Robert Durst (Daniel Gillies – The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) of the New York City Dursts. Kathie met Robert, or Bobby, in 1971 when she took an apartment in a building Robert’s family owned and where he collected the monthly rent in person. The two literally bumped into each other in the hall and were soon inseparable.
What appealed to Kathie about Robert is anyone’s guess. Robert is twitchy, sweaty, and awkward in a way that isn’t charming. He has a square jaw, a full head of hair, and lots of money, but I won’t impugn the dead by saying the appeal was shallow. The film does nothing to make Robert Durst seem like a normal human being, so we really have no good answer to why someone as seemingly intelligent as Kathie is portrayed would be interested in such a weaselly dude.
The film cuts back and forth in time beginning with the fateful day in February of 1982 when an obviously distressed Durst reported his wife missing. We then cut back to Kathie moving into a nice apartment and getting settled before meeting Durst and seemingly hopping aboard the first available man; sorry to the memory of Kathie, but if the IRL Robert Durst is this off-putting, which, judging by The Jinx, he probably is, we have no Earthly idea what would cause Kathie to marry Robert.
Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.
