The Client List

Plot

Sam (Jennifer Love Hewitt) - a former Texas beauty queen and mother of three kids - struggles with financial difficulties and the threat of foreclosure on her home, after she loses her job and her former Texas football star husband loses his construction job due to a nagging knee injury. Sam desperately starts looking for a job and when she applies for one at a massage parlor, she discovers the masseuses who work there are actually prostitutes serving prominent members of society.

At first, Sam takes the job offer, but refuses to perform the extras for the prominent list. Seeing that she has no other options left, Sam reluctantly accepts giving extras to clients. Lying to her mother (Cybill Shepherd) and her friends about the real nature of her job, Sam starts bringing in a lot of money and hiding it in her freezer. In addition to the abundant money, Sam soon becomes the most popular masseuse among the clients. But she got caught and arrested for prostitution. The D.A. made a deal with her to form a client list with a lesser sentence. She spent a few weeks in jail and after she got out trying turn her life around. The wives of the clients that Sam hooked up with thought they were going to lynch her. No, they wanted sex advice. Sam took a job as a waitress and went back to college. Right now she and her husband were separated and getting back together in the end.

Cast

Reception

The Client List drew in an audience of 3.9 million viewers and was the highest rated program for the evening amongst female viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker considered it a typical Lifetime film that "offer[ed] cheap thrills … while offering moral uplift." Calling it "malarkey," he felt that Hewitt was able to sell the film to the audiences due to her "talent for communicating sincerity and charm."

Awards and nominations

The film received a Golden Globe nomination for Jennifer Love Hewitt in the category "Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television," but lost to Claire Danes starring as Temple Grandin in the film of the same name.

Home media

The film was released on DVD in January 2011 in North America.

Television series

On August 10, 2011, it was announced that Lifetime has ordered production of The Client List television series based on the film. Hewitt reprised the lead role and also serves as executive producer. The series, however, is a re-imagining of the film (with Hewitt's character having a different name from the film), and is not a direct continuation of the film's storyline. The series premiered on April 8, 2012. On November 1, 2013, Lifetime cancelled the series after two seasons, the final episode of series aired on June 16, 2013.