u/JustSomeWeirdGuy2000

- I only saw this movie one time in the late 90s or early 2000s, on a premium channel like HBO or Cinemax

- First half of the movie is the victimized housewife Main Character dealing with her abusive husband

- Dude is an absolute trashbag. Always yelling at her. I think he's shown beating her with a belt in one scene, or it's very heavily implied.

- Wife MC goes to... art classes? Or pottery classes? Something like that, as an escape from her hell-life.

- She meets a fairly charming guy concerned about her problems.

- He comes up with an elaborate scheme to off the husband and make it look like a suicide? Or something where the wife wouldn't be directly implicated.

- The movie makes a really weird attempt to humanize the husband in the last couple seconds he's alive? Charming Guy ends up stabbing the husband, or slicing his throat, and there's a moment when he's reaching toward his wife with a sad and terrified look on his face.

- That's roughly the first half of the movie.

- Surprise, surprise: Charming Guy turns out to be a complete megalomaniac nutbasket.

- He kidnaps the wife from the murder scene and spends the entire second half of the movie holding her hostage in his high rise apartment.

- Not Charming Guy is a weirdo who wants to turn the wife MC into his elegant geisha

- I think there's a scene where the MC is screaming out the apartment window for help, but it's bolted shut and/or she's too high up for anyone to hear her.

- I think Not Charming Guy's ultimate goal was to smuggle her out of the country and force her to pose as his wife. But I might be completely making that part up. I DEFINITELY remember the stuff where he wants to dress her up as his mail-order bride / geisha / whatever, when there is absolutely nothing Asian about the MC.

- I think she eventually manages to kill the creepo and barely escape with her life? But I barely remember the ending. Most of the details I remember are in the long stretch of hostage scenes in the second half of the movie.

- It doesn't help that I can't remember a single actor from this movie. I just remember the dead husband being a gritty mustached guy.

- My theory: The main reason this movie isn't more popular and I can't find it on any "Best 90s Thrillers" lists on IMDB is probably because it's just so unsettling and grimy. This poor lady with zero agency of her own spends the entire movie being passed between one creepazoid to another.

Does anyone have any idea what weird and wacky movie I'm thinking of?