Abhiroop Das
Directed by Lisa France, Lifetime’s ‘My Seemingly Perfect Family’ follows Lexi, an 18-year-old trying to find her footing after leaving the foster care system. When an opportunity to work as an au pair comes her way, she sees it as a chance to finally have the kind of stability she has never known. The family she joins seems to offer exactly that, living in a beautiful home and presenting an enviable image of domestic harmony. But Lexi soon realizes that being welcomed into someone’s home does not necessarily mean knowing what happens behind its doors. As the thriller movie progresses, her relationship with the family grows more complicated, and the comfortable life she imagined for herself starts to feel far less secure. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Seemingly Perfect Family Plot Synopsis
‘The Seemingly Perfect Family’ begins with Lexi, a foster teen, waking up to her 18th birthday with some terrible news. With her foster home announcing that they only provide care to youths until they reach adulthood, Lexi has about a week to find a new residence, employment, and everything in between. Her mother, who has been in prison for years, doesn’t have a pardon hearing until next month, and with no one willing to employ Lexi without any prior experience, she is quickly left desperate. Her big break comes, however, when she overhears her roommate bragging about her upcoming interview for an au pair job. The Sterlings, she describes, are fabulously wealthy, and Lexi senses her chance to escape the system for good.
Pretending to be the Sterlings, Lexi messages Blair that the interview has to be rescheduled, and instead heads to the location herself. There, she assumes Blair’s identity before meeting Chelsea and Daniel Sterling, lying about work experience and hiding the truth about her mother. While Chelsea doesn’t seem to approve of Lexi all too much, Daniel appears mesmerized and quickly hires her. At the Sterlings’ enormous mansion, Lexi meets their baby, Beau, and quickly gets to work, but things don’t seem to be going well between Chelsea and Daniel. The couple argues frequently, with Chelsea accusing Daniel of being attracted to Lexi.
Before long, Lexi’s lies begin to catch up to her as well, as Blaire confronts her about the employment and threatens to reveal the truth unless she gets half of Lexi’s salary. Meanwhile, Daniel becomes more brazen with his attempts to initiate an affair with Lexi, leaving her uncomfortable and on edge. Things take a turn when Chelsea discovers Lexi’s letters, and with that, the fact that her mother is in prison. As she tries to get Lexi fired, Daniel defends her with his ulterior motives, and later tries to kill Chelsea with a trip wire. When the plan fails, and Lexi gets hurt instead, Daniel gives up on all pretense, killing Chelsea and, later, Blaire in cold blood, before holding Lexi captive. He then reveals his plan to take Lexi and Beau to a private island to start a new family, leaving Lexi determined to fight back.
The Seemingly Perfect Family Ending: Is Daniel Dead or Alive? Does Lexi Escape?
‘The Seemingly Perfect Family’ ends with Lexi shooting Daniel and escaping his clutches, though it’s never confirmed whether he is dead for good or simply incapacitated. After Daniel forces her onto a plane and takes off, his victory seems all but assured, but that’s where he makes a miscalculation. As Lexi finds herself facing a lifetime of torment on one side and certain death on the other, she realizes that she has nothing to lose. In the confined space of a cockpit, Daniel can hardly wrestle for control of the gun before the wind turbulence knocks him into a corner, and he loses consciousness. Though this leaves Lexi with a golden oppurtunity, the biggeest challenge is yet to come, landing a plane all by herself.
While the scene where Daniel teaches Lexi how to fly a plane does come in handy, it’s still far from enough to make her a professional. It’s also not just herself that she is protecting, but also Beau, and luckily, help comes from the airstrip, where Lexi’s mother is able to get another pilot to tune in. As he guides her through the entire process, Lexi steers the aircraft and makes a successful landing without making a single mistake. In many ways, this scene is a symbol of regaining control of her life without any external help, away from a tyrant like Daniel. Moments before she can leave the cockpit, however, Daniel wakes up, and thus begins a final tug for control that ends with him getting shot, and Lexi escaping safely.
Though Daniel’s status is never explicitly confirmed, we do see him lying motionless for a brief moment. There appear to be no gunshot wounds on or around his head and neck, which increases the possibility that the wound may have been non-fatal. Even if Daniel survives, however, his future is already mapped out. With Lexi’s mother calling the police in advance, Daniel is almost certain to be arrested, which means that the Murdochs have nothing to fear anymore. Though Lexi spends the entire film trying to battle the adversities of life that either manifest as circumstances, or as horrific people such as Daniel, in the end, she finds the peace and stability that she has been yearning for this entire time.
What Happens to Beau?
With Lexi landing the plane safely, little Beau also survives without a scratch on his body and gets to be far away from the toxic control of his father. The final scene of the film jumps forward in time a bit, revealing that Beau is now with a new family, one that is effectively the polar opposite of the Sterlings. While Daniel and Chelsea never had enough love for Beau, nor a perspective on how he should be raised, the baby’s new parents prove to b far more loving to him. This is also reflected in their willingness to have Lexi spend time with Beau, seeing that she also became a motherly figure to him over the span of only a few weeks. Beau’s new parents plan to tell him the truth about his past, when the time comes, as it is nothing short of a miracle.
In many ways, Beau can be seen as a direct parallel to Lexi, in that both of them have experience with the foster system and have led a part of their lives without their parents. Where the stories diverge, however, is in how Lexi pours all her efforts into ensuring that Beau never has to face the same challenges she did. Being trapped in the system can have a dramatic effect on a child’s psyche, even from the time of their infancy. While Lexi spent several formative years of her childhood between foster homes, she finds Beau a new, loving family, outright saying that she has successfully prevented Beau from mirroring her own hardships.
One question that emerges from the ending is why Lexi doesn’t raise Beau by herself. In the few days and weeks they spend together, Lexi finds a real connection to the baby, putting his life ahead of hers at every single instance where they are threatened by Daniel. It is likely that the very desire to give him the best life that brings her to this decision. By having another family adopt Beau, she gives him a chance at a complete, stable life, especially when Lexi is only getting started with her own. Reunited with her mother at long last, Lexi will likely go on to explore many avenues in the near future, and this way, she gets to go on her own journey, right alongside Beau’s.
Are Chelsea and Blair’s Bodies Found?
As Daniel is either dead or behind bars, it is only a matter of time before Chelsea and Blair’s bodies are discovered by the police. Given how Lexi already knows that Chelsea’s body is stored in the freezer, she would likely be the first person to point the authorities toward it. Unlike Chelsea, however, we never get to see what happens to Blair’s remains, and it is equally possible that her body is in the freezer alongside Chelsea’s or buried somewhere within the Sterlings’ compound. Regardless, for the police to retrieve their remains will bring their individual stories to light, further bringing Daniel to justice for his crimes.
Daniel’s desire to start a new family with Lexi comes largely from his hatred of Chelsea and his arbitrary claims that she is not a good mother. On some level, Chelsea also knows that Daniel feels this way, but it’s impossible to predict how out there his actions can be. Daniel’s attraction to Lexi forces his perversion out into the open, which he then tries to mask by claiming that it is in the best interest of Beau. What Daniel really desires, however, is to leave Chelsea behind and restart his life, this time with no restriction on his worst instincts. It is with this twisted mindset that he takes Chelsea’s life, knowing that she is the one person who saw through him.
While Daniel claims that his goal is to start a new family, in reality, his actions manifest as a desire for control and for stripping others of all agency. This is why he quite literally chains Lexi in the basement, and then chokes Blair to death when she gets too close to the truth. However, Lexi ultimately defeats him on his own turf, carrying forward the legacy of Chelsea, Blair, and perhaps many others like them, by consistently beating the system and carving out a path of her own.
Read More: Is Lifetime’s The Seemingly Perfect Family Based on a True Story?
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