A Stranger in the Mirror (1993 TV Movie) User Reviews

Your rationalization for Skinemax

[L. Lion · 1/10 · 28 February 1999]

I have a girlfriend who likes Sidney Sheldon stuff and she forced me to sit through it. She'd also forced me to sit through Poor Little Rich Girl, which wasn't that bad, and since this had the same director and screenwriter I thought I could make it through it. Boy, was I wrong. Lori Loughlin's character gets raped in a porno film, and then never does anything about it. Why? Doesn't this film want conflict? Instead it focuses on Loughlin's conflict with her husband's agent, Christopher Plummer, who is so eager to ooze spite that it actually does seem to come out of his ears. Loughlin's hubby, years after her porno rape, is a rich comedian played by Perry King. I don't know what Perry King was thinking, but his facial contortions in attempting to convey his character's suffering from his stroke had to be intentionally hilarious - perhaps a message to his agent who got him into this thing and anyone dumb enough to be watching it. One of the characters, Loughlin's rich former fiancee, is as clueless as any man ever portrayed on screen in any film. Ever.

Any man who is ever told by a woman that T&A films are idiotic and demeaning can source this as proof that there is something beneath them made especially for women.

The Greatest Bad TV Movie EVER Made!!!

[shark-43 · 10/10 · 20 June 2004]

Wow - this film is so cheesy, so awful, so wrong, so not with it while trying to be with it that it is HILARIOUS! Spoilers*********(Like it would matter with this cheesefest):

I was lucky enough to tape this turkey when it first aired as an ABC TV movie and since then I have shown it to friends in the entertainment business and they HOWL with laughter. Everything about it is unintentionally hilarious. First off, Sidney Sheldon has been writing these trashy lusty novels about the rich and famous for decades and this one was written in 1973 and then made in 1993 but the WHOLE FEEL, the WHOLE TAKE on show biz might as well be 1953!!! Perry King(of all people) plays a stand-up comic playing toilets and dives in Middle America but dreams of making it big in L.A. Now they have him doing jokes that Jack Carter and Buddy Hackett wouldn't even babble while drunk - literally one-liners from a dirty Borscht Belt comic and yet he's WORKING!!!! This is at a time when Seinfeld and Tim Allen were doing stand-up so it is as if this character (named Toby Temple by the way) is trapped in the fifties as Henny Youngman with pecs. Also Perry King is pushing fifty years of age when he made this and everyone keeps referring to him as "kid" or this "young punk". Hysterical!!! Christopher Plummer chews up the scenery as a Mike Ovitz type - a powerful agent who discovers Toby and makes him a BIG STAR (The clips from his big hit show, The Toby Temple HOUR, looks so awful, so Mandrell Ssisters Variety Hour outtakes, that your jaw drops!!!) Lori Loughlin gives another dead-eyed-there's-no-one=home PERFORMANCE AS a plucky country gal coming to make it in Hollywood. They have her doing "rounds" at the studios as if she's Judy Garland in a 1940's movie - almost ALL the aspects of how Hollywood works is dead wrong -- she falls for a hustle on a movie set when a male actor offers her a part in an "indie film" and of course they drug her coffee and perform sex acts on her while filming a porno cuz you know in the 1990s they just cant FIND ANYBODY to make pornos - oooohhh no! No girls are working in the porno industry then, they have to lie and drug girls found on movie sets - of course, yes. Sheesh. This of course hardens our sweet cornfed girl into a jaded struggling dame who meets Toby when he's famous and she wont put up with any of his BS, see??? So he must have her - he's bedded everybody and wants her most of all. There is hokey dialog and hammy supporting characters, talking ghosts, strokes, drownings, beatings, porn - EVERYTHING a Hollywood trashfest should have. This movie should be a cult classic. Watch Toby Temple if you DARE!!!!

My score 09 was based on the book, not the film!

[danfonseca-42823 · 9/10 · 25 October 2023]

The book is very good. The first time I read it, I was 20 years old, maybe 19. The film is very trashy, it doesn't match the richness of details (ok, this is common and always happens when transferring pages to screens). If you watch the film first, you certainly won't be excited to read the book. Do the opposite, start with the book.

Do the opposite, start with the book. The drama that Jill Temple faces to achieve stardom, as well as the trajectory of comedian Tobby, are intriguing and keep reading. Both of their lives are painful, always fighting for a place in the sun. The supporting characters are interesting too.