Flirting With Forty Starring Heather Locklear Premieres Tonight

If the makers of television movies, like their counterparts in the newspaper business, were required to clarify misimpressions left by their work, here is how the correction for “Flirting With Forty,” a film Saturday night on Lifetime.“Contrary to the implication in ‘Flirting With Forty,’ if you are a divorced woman searching for love who has had two children, you almost certainly do not look like Heather Locklear, who plays Jackie, the turning-40 divorced mother in the film. Also, if a much younger man takes an interest in you, he almost certainly will not look like Robert Buckley, who plays Jackie’s 27-year-old lover, Kyle, a hunky surfer.

“In addition, if you struck up your romance with Kyle while on a vacation to Hawaii from the mainland, you almost certainly will not be able to afford to make an unlimited number of flights back there to see him, as Ms. Locklear’s character does in the movie. Furthermore, when he takes you to a picturesque Hawaiian waterfall for some splash-filled groping, it is extremely unlikely that there will not be a single tourist anywhere in the vicinity.”

Ms. Locklear looks great in that age-defying way available to Hollywood stars, having no trouble passing for the 40-year-old Jackie even though she did her own flirting with 40 early in President Bush’s first term. (And yes, she’s a mother too.) The film, based on a book from Jane Porter’s chick-lit franchise, surrounds her with all the clichés that apparently speak to Lifetime’s target audience: a snorkeling excursion through a sea of obliging fish; a bath in a tub surrounded by burning candles; a drinking session with her (generally gorgeous of course) gal pals in which man-related injustices are bemoaned.