A TV Movie To Fill That ‘Outlander’ Void: ‘The Two Worlds Of Jennie Logan’ Reviewed
by Rachel Bellwoar
There’s forgiving someone and there’s being able to move past what they did. In the TV movie, The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan, Jennie (Lindsay Wagner) has forgiven her husband (Alan Feinstein) for cheating on her, but that doesn’t mean their marriage is secure. In order to try and save it, Jennie and Michael decide to buy a new house together, but end up picking one so old, it’s a historical landmark.
Which probably wouldn’t be so bad if this film were a straight drama, but it’s not. There’s something else going on and while most people will know the twist going in, the film actually takes it’s time doling out answers and offering alternative explanations, like the house being haunted by ghosts. Even if you already know the answer, it’s fun watching Jennie try to figure it out for herself.
Written and directed by Frank De Felitta, The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan is basically Outlander crossed with Titanic, which tells you a lot about what this film’s about. Somehow Jennie has stumbled on time travel and, through trial and error, starts to figure out how time travel works. She even has a time travel romance – because why fix a broken marriage when you can find someone to love in the 19th century?
For Jennie, that person is David (Mark Singer), an artist and the previous owner of Jennie’s new house. He also was married to a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jennie, but she died shortly after their wedding, so he’s single now.
What’s great about The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan is it truly is a female fantasy. Who cares about David’s grief and the ramifications of falling in love with someone who looks like your dead wife, in true, Vertigo fashion? All of the moral quandaries are glossed over for shirtless men, men in short bathrobes, and men who don’t know how to button their shirts.
Some of the acting is on the flat side, especially from Singer and Henry Wilcoxon, whose line delivery as David’s angry father-in-law is pretty monotone. Wagner is wonderful and fun to watch during a fight sequence, where Bionic Woman has to do some exaggerated cowering.
Not every plot point is thought through, like why, if Jennie looks so much like Pamela, doesn’t Pamela’s sister (Linda Gray) react when she sees her? There’s also some terrifying old age makeup by future Oscar winner, Stan Winston (who also worked on The Autobiography of Miss. Jane Pittman). The actor’s unrecognizable, so it seems like a lot of effort to go through not to hire an older actress, plus why not have an older woman look like Olivia de Havilland or Cicely Tyson (who passed away earlier this year at age 96)?
Being a TV movie, the transitions are fairly low key (and no explanation is ever given for why time travel looks so painful), but Jennie Logan is an escapist treat that is surprisingly effective at pulling off misdirections.
The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan is available on Blu-Ray now from Kino Lorber and Scorpion Releasing.
