Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Tania Raymonde did an amazing job in playing Jodi Arias. I watched An American Mystery a few days prior to this and they are almost exact. I've seen Jodi in this movie as a human and the victim as a villain through the story till the actual murder. It is not Hollywood polished movie and it is a bit raw and yet it lacks something I can not be sure what. If I will recommend it, well if you have some extra time, why not :-)

I expected more out of this movie after reading the reviews. It was not nearly as good as others made it out to be. The relationship between Jodi and Travis that was depicted was completely inaccurate. Half the things they showed in this movie never even occurred and they grossly exaggerated how quickly their sexual relationship progressed. Other details were completely made up or changed for whatever reason, giving a different impression of how things actually happened. Why change names, events and other details when the public already knew them?! If you want to know how the relationship between Jodi and Travis really played out, read "Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story". This movie should have had the disclaimer "Based on actual events", rather than "This is a true story".

The 1997 film "Fatal Attraction" was nominated for 6 Academy Awards. This has been called the real life version for the 21st Century; sadly as a TV film it can't win an Oscar, even more sadly is the fact that it "is" the real life version. It probably wouldn't in any case because in spite of the excellent portrayal of "femme fatale" Arias by Tania Raymonde, like "To Catch A Killer" (about John Gacy) this was a film that was made with a higher purpose than mere entertainment.Although Jodi Arias was convicted of the murder of Travis Alexander only last year, it cannot be said to have been made entirely in indecent haste because the crime happened in June 2008, but it was released only a month after her conviction.The dialogue aims for realism rather than dramatic effect; the line "dildo with a heartbeat" was in fact used by Travis. As undoubtedly was Jodi's line "delete it and it's gone forever", except that it wasn't. Did she really expect to get away with murder?She was indeed his dirty little secret, and he could have treated her better, but did a man who had never so much as slapped his lover deserve to die at her hands like this?The only charge that may be made against this film – apart from the above one of indecent haste – is that it is bad taste to portray a real and recent murder so graphically. Far worse though was the release of the actual crime scene photographs, which could have been avoided even for a trial broadcast live on the Internet. In the UK this would not have been allowed, and Travis would at least have been granted dignity in death.

I felt the made-for-TV movie about Jody Arias was actually very good and was a balanced presentation of a sensational story. Jody Arias is obviously unbalanced, paranoid, has super-low self-esteem, and many other psychological defects. But as the story is shown, it also balances this with Travis Alexander's duplicity. He wanted to maintain the appearance of being a good, pious Mormon but kept Jody Arias as his secret life and kept her out of the mainstream of his life. When he tried to break up several times, he always ended up back in bed with Jody. He certainly did not deserve the terrible thing that happened to him, but he contributed his share. I thought the film was balanced and worth watching.