Kumari Shreya
With Danny J. Boyle as its director, Lifetime’s ‘Secret Life of the Pastor’s Wife is certainly a thriller movie worth watching for those who enjoy the genre. The film focuses on Angie Martin, who is married to a pastor named Jim Martin. Despite how Jim preaches to others about familial bonds, he himself does not have a good relationship with his wife. As such, Angie ends up starting an affair with the pool boy who has recently started working for the family.
Unfortunately, Angie’s new relationship ends up having far-reaching consequences in the community, as many struggle with buried feelings of jealousy, and certain secrets come under the danger of becoming public. The story is depicted in an entertaining manner with the help of artists like Jennings Rice, Andrew Fultz, and Mike Manning. The complicated relationships between the characters make the audience relate to them easily.
Secret Life of a Pastor’s Wife is an Original Screenplay
While ‘Secret Life of a Pastor’s Wife’ undoubtedly has a tinge of reality, the movie itself is completely fictional. In fact, the realistic nature of the plot can be attributed to the original writing of Ashley O’Neil, who has written various Lifetime movies over the years.
Notably, the idea of a housewife having an affair with her pool boy is perhaps an element that might not be new to many. In fact, the concept has often been used as a joke or a plot point in many stories when trying to highlight how some housewives end up having affairs with their pool wives due to a variety of reasons, including convenience and a certain level of attraction. There are even cases similar to this that have ended up in the news.
One of the most well-known cases involved a pool boy and an affair involved Jerry Falwell Jr, his wife, Becki Falwell, and a pool boy named Giancarlo Granda. Jerry’s father, Jerry Falwell Sr, actually established Liberty University, which is a private evangelical Christian institute. In 2020, the Falwell couple had come under scrutiny for their apparent sexual affairs, and in August 2020, it was reported that Becki had apparently asked Giancarlo to come into her room to sleep with her on the condition that her husband could also watch. Jerry’s involvement has been disputed by the man himself, though the affair between Becki and Giancarlo has long been accepted as a truth.
The similarities between the Falwell case and ‘Secret Life of a Pastor’s Wife’ are certainly easy to see. The husband in both cases is a religious figure whose wife’s apparent affair with a pool boy ends up disrupting many lives. While the consequences in the Falwell case were certainly more nuanced, the similarities are quite hard to ignore. This highlights that while the Lifetime movie may not be a retelling of an actual story, it does contain elements that mirror real-life situations and not just from an outside perspective. Like all love affairs, the situations depicted and told are complicated, but that is also indicative of how few things are ever simple in real life.
Read More: Is Lifetime’s Secret Life of a Sorority Girl a True Story?
