Raymonde and Meredith Salenger (center); and the real Jodi Arias.
THE LOOK: Tania Raymonde and Jesse Lee Soffer (above); Raymonde and Meredith Salenger (below); and the real Jodi Arias (circled). (Mark Fellman; Jack Zeman )
If too much Jodi Arias is never enough Jodi Arias, then you are about to get an even more intimate dose than the over-four-month- long TV trial provided.
Yes, on Saturday night Lifetime airs its original sex-and-slash movie, “Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret,” and for true-crime buffs, it’s lotsa buff bodies doing lotsa nasty things.
But in this case, when Arias did the nasty, she ended up committing the most heinous nasty — stabbing ex-boyfriend, motivational Mormon Travis Alexander, 27 times — then slashing his throat until he was nearly decapitated and finally shooting him for good measure.
Last month, Arias was found guilty of first-degree murder, but hasn’t been sentenced yet.
Is it any wonder that such a brutal crime by such a beautiful woman of such a handsome, religious man kept cable news in business for not just the months of the trial but for the weeks leading up to it? Hell, they even milked it for weeks after it was over.
“Dirty Little Secret,” starring Tania Raymonde and Jesse Lee Soffer, details the relationship between Arias and Alexander from the moment Arias attends one of his motivational seminars, following him into the men’s bathroom and turning him in an Arizona minute into a sex-crazed, guilt-riddled motivational Mormon.
We watch as Arias, an aspiring photographer who understood relationships only through sex, wins Alexander’s lust, but never his love.
Of course she comes across as an evil, obsessed woman who will ruin any good man, but unlike most TV movies, in this real-life scenario it’s the good man — not the bad girl — who has to die for enjoying too much dirty sex.
Since you’d have to have been living in a cave or be a New York Times reader to not know all the stuff that went on in the trial the producers have — wisely, or as wisely as a good cheesy true crime movie can — concentrated on the relationship between Arias and Alexander and their sex life, rather than the trial.
In fact, the trial is almost an afterthought after all the sex and violence is exhausted. Somehow, Alexander comes across as a nice guy deeply in lust — even when he’s telling Arias he never loved her and she has to go away — while Arias is presented as a somewhat disturbed family girl in love and lust. After prodding from his Mormon buddies along with Arias’ increasingly bizarre behavior, Alexander breaks it off and she becomes unhinged.
When he dates a good Mormon virgin, Arias sneaks in and photographs them on his couch. She slashes his tires and tries to run them down.
And yet,when Arias shows up a short time later at his place, Alexander still makes the fatal mistake of letting her into his house and into his shower. Since Arias was a woman who photographed every aspect of their sex life, she even managed somehow to shoot his sexually-fueled stabbing/shooting death.
Raymonde and Soffer are so good they deserve Emmy noms, even though the Emmy voters are too high-minded to consider such low-life fare. And they’d be wrong! Again.
I really want to say that I loved every second of this cheesy true-crimer, but a man is dead and an unspeakably beastly murder was committed and I feel too guilty myself to say such a thing. Almost.