Lifetime's "Too Late to Say Goodbye": Think Michael Peterson

Evil pretty people are extra scary, probably because we like to think that things that look good are good.

That's why Rob Lowe is well cast in "Ann Rule's Too Late to Say Goodbye" (Lifetime Movie Network, channel 47, 8 tonight).

Lowe uses his borderline feminine looks as Bart Corbin, a successful dentist whose wife Jenn, as the movie opens, appears to commit suicide. Her young son finds her with a gun in one hand and divorce papers in the other.

The chief investigator (Michelle Hurd) calls it a suicide and wants to leave it at that, but Jenn's sister Heather (Lauren Holly) doesn't believe it's suicide, yet she doesn't suspect her brother-in-law. At first.

That's because Jenn appears to have had some issues too; for one, she's been having an online affair. And also, the family thinks her cute husband is all good, instead of too good to be true.

The affair has a twist, and although the based-on-a-true-story case took place in Georgia, it has echoes of North Carolina's own Michael and Kathleen Peterson case in Durham. Except Bart Corbin is extra evil, and as played by Lowe, definitely a sociopath. (Not saying Peterson isn't, but he did show emotion.)

Lowe mostly acts by tightening that square jaw to show how tightly wound he is and smiling that pearly white smile when he's being charming. Holly (doesn't she look very different from how she looked on "Picket Fences"?) does fine as the won't-take-no-for-an-answer sister. Hurd basically does her old "Law & Order: SVU" role, down to the same pants.

It's not the best Lifetime movie ever, but it does the job.