Entertainment - AP
'Unexpected Love' Is Twist on Old Story
Wed Mar 19, 2:46 PM ET

By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES - We've seen this kind of love story before: A disaffected wife leaves her marriage and eventually finds happiness in a fulfilling new relationship.

But there's a twist in the Lifetime movie "An Unexpected Love." The wife's new love is a woman, not a man. Unexpected, indeed, but not unprecedented.

The film, debuting 9 p.m. EST Monday and starring Leslie Hope ("24," "Dragonfly") and Wendy Crewson ("The Santa Clause 2," "Air Force One"), reflects an experience that's not as rare as it might seem, said writer-director Lee Rose.

"I know people, friends, who have done that," said Rose.

She cites a support group, the Straight Spouse Network, which estimates there are 2 million marriages in which a partner has disclosed they are gay or lesbian.

"An Unexpected Love" takes a measured approach to one such romance, concentrating on what Rose calls its key theme: That love deserves to flourish and be honored, whatever path it takes.

Hope (who played Kiefer Sutherland's ill-fated wife in the first season of Fox's "24") stars as Kate Mayer, a suburban wife and mother of two (Alison Pill, Curtis Butchart) who realizes her marriage has withered.

Husband Jack (D.W. Moffett) reluctantly agrees to split and the pair explains the painful decision to their children. Initially at a loss, Kate's awakening begins when she takes a job at a real estate agency owned by McNally "Mac" Hayes (Crewson).

The somewhat naive Kate is disconcerted to learn Mac is lesbian but is drawn to her. Mac rebuffs her, still suffering from her lover's death and fearing that Kate isn't prepared to deal with the fallout of a lesbian relationship.

When the two do fall in love, the angry and confused reaction of Kate's family is nearly overwhelming.

"You can't be attracted to a woman," Kate's husband tells her.

"She's a person, Jack," Kate replies.

The film's tone is quietly reserved; even the one sex scene between Kate and Mac is brief and tame. It would have been longer, if not more revealing, but Lifetime ordered it cut.

The channel's wariness is interesting since Lifetime essentially pitched the project to Rose. "The Truth About Jane," her Lifetime film about a teenager and her family confronting her homosexuality, was a ratings success and the channel wanted a companion film about adults.

Rose's script about a heterosexual discovering she could love another woman initially was met with confusion by Lifetime executives, the writer said.

"Jane" and the new film were alike, Rose told them. "The movies are about one thing and one thing only - that you should have the right to love whoever you want."

"It's about tolerance," she said. "You fall in love with a person, you don't fall in love with a sex."

Hollywood's liberal image aside, creating a serious film about homosexuality is difficult, Rose said. Besides network sensitivities, there's a reluctance among actors to get involved.

"More than you would think," Rose said. "At cocktail parties and meetings they'll say they'll play lesbians, but when they're actually getting scripts, they won't do it. ... It makes a lot of people uncomfortable."

She called Hope and Crewson courageous for agreeing to star.

"Wendy has two children, so I think it might have been a difficult decision for her because it's hard to explain to your kids that mom just played a lesbian and kisses a girl," Rose said.

Both actresses say they had no reservations. Hope was initially intrigued by a playful note from Rose, which mentioned their mutual friend, Sutherland, and a recent visit he and Rose paid to a tattoo parlor.

"I said 'Yes' when I heard about the tattoo," Hope said. "I said 'Double yes' when I read the script. ... It struck me as a really honest look at someone trying to find their way through life, the way we all do."

Working together was a bonus for the actresses. Both natives of Canada, they have been friends for more than a decade and share the same agent (Hope now lives in Los Angeles, while Crewson is in Toronto with her husband, actor Michael Murphy).

The only problem, the pals discovered, was filming their romantic encounter.

"I think it's much easier if you don't know the person," Crewson said. "Of course, the entire time we were trying not to laugh."

The scene turned out to be "beautiful and quite moving," especially in its uncut version, Crewson said. But she prefers not to dwell on the network's decision.

"In the bigger picture, it's more important that the movie get done. We got in a lot," she said, noting, for instance, that Lifetime had tried to suggest an unhappy ending for the lesbian couple.

"When there are those kind of battles to be fought, the fact it's a truncated love scene doesn't bother me as much," Crewson said.