This movie could’ve been so good, it’s just such a shame about the third act.

Deadly Illusions follows a writer who has been asked to write the final book in her series, but she now has two children who need looking after, and so she hires a nanny in the form of Grace to take care of the children while her husband works and she writes the book.

But there’s something wrong with Grace. She comes across as very sweet and innocent but then has moments of promiscuity that range from the main character, Mary, and her husband, Tom, as well. But the way that these moments are shown within the movie means you never truly know whether they are dream fantasies or whether they are actually happening.

This was a really fun plot point of the movie of not knowing whether what you’re seeing is real or fake and whose fantasies they are or whether they’re all Grace’s herself. It’s also interesting how other friends of the couple view this new nanny, and how things can get twisted by old views on a hot nanny coming in and instantly tearing the family apart.

But this is where the movie falls off a cliff, and while I didn’t mind it to begin with, the part where it turned out that Grace was never employed by the nanny company or the part where Mary goes to see Grace’s aunt, these didn’t bother me. It was the parts after that where they just seemed to come out of nowhere and were quite frustrating.

I don’t want to spoil the ending too much but I do feel it came out of left field. The fear I had watching through this movie was that they were going to leave us on a cliff hanger of ‘was it all in their minds or did it actually happen?’ but in a way, I’d rather have that ending over the one we got because it just seemed too far-fetched and we almost needed more subtext to what was happening to really understand it.

I think this movie could’ve been really good. The first two acts of the film are really enjoyable and do keep you on your toes, it’s just a shame that the ending skewed all that and there were some moments that just didn’t seem very well acted and really made the film fall apart. It completely ruined my suspension of disbelief and made me want to go back to earlier scenes that had a lot more weight and a lot more intrigue to them.

I would recommend this film as I do think it’s a good one but I think it could’ve been executed better. It might be your kind of thing, it’s certainly the right genre for me, but unfortunately the ending just lets the whole film down, but I’ll let you explore that for yourself.

If you’ve seen the movie what did you think of it?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding