Review: Lifetime's 'The Client List'

Though it’s based on a
2010 Lifetime movie with the same title,
The Client List makes it sound like star
Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a madam. Actually,
her character, Riley Parks, is a masseuse
at an upscale day spa in Texas. She
took the job to support her two young kids
and pay the mortgage after her husband
walked out.

The list refers to clients willing to pay
extra for unspecified services beyond a
massage — but only if the spa worker
volunteers, as Riley does, eventually and
reluctantly. Fortunately, the clients are all
super clean, and mostly
super buff, and have
never seen anyone look
quite as good as Riley
does in a negligee.

Riley provides a lot
more than skillful hands,
though: she also helps
clients work out the problems
in their personal
lives, even if that means
they go back to their
wives.

Even if those jealous
wives misunderstand
Riley’s interest for golddigging
and spray-paint
nasty words on her minivan.
With love and support from her spa family,
her oft-married mom (Cybill Shepherd) and friends,
including brother-in-law Evan (Colin Egglesfiend),
Riley struggles to maintain a respectable reputation
and solve some personal mysteries of her
own involving the husband who fled the pressures
of home.