Deadly Illusions (2021)

STREAMING (Australia)

Netflix

STARRING

Dermot Mulroney, Kristin Davis, Greer Grammer.

GENRE

Drama, Thriller. 

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

The lines between reality and fiction are blurred as a bestselling female novelist, suffering from writer's block, hires an innocent young woman to watch over her twin children.

OUR THOUGHTS

When we first viewed 'Deadly Illusions' it was one of those rare occasions where we got in so early there wasn't another review, rating or hint of expectation to be found anywhere. This can often be the best way to go about it, untainted by bias, and on occasion can lead to discovering unexpected gems... this was not one of those occasions. 

The film follows happily married couple Tom and Mary (played by Dermot Mulroney and Kristin Davis respectively), their twin children and newly hired young housekeeper/nanny Grace (Greer Grammer). Mary is a best selling novelist who is determined to leave her writing days behind, frightened of the person she becomes as she gets swept up in the creative process, however the lure of an enormous payday is enough to bring her out of retirement. As Mary begins to struggle for inspiration to write, she finds herself becoming increasingly intrigued by Grace - who carries with her an odd mixture of innocence and a mysterious seductive attraction. 

This is certainly one only for adults, although the film never gets overly explicit in terms of sexual content the subject hovers over a majority of the film, and there is a touch of somewhat graphic violence also. 

As mentioned, this was not one of our favourites. The acting was stiff and cringeworthy at times by most of the cast, probably exacerbated by the overall feel of a cheap midday movie. All of this could be easily looked past if the plot was intriguing enough, however this facet of the movie was probably even worse. What could have easily been a one hour program was agonisingly stretched to nearly 2 hours, of which more than half seemed to be largely disorienting scenes which failed to move the plot in any meaningful (or at least interesting) way. When the story did finally progress in the final act it was not only poorly executed with more than questionable character actions, it was also entirely predictable.    

SUMMARY

This is no where near the worst film we've ever seen but is definitely the least enjoyable movie experience we've encountered for quite some time. No doubt there will be an audience who will appreciate 'Deadly Illusions' more than we did, unfortunately we found it slow, predictable and ultimately quite boring.  

PUFF'S FINAL SCORE

46/100