We’d like to think Netflix’s Deadly Illusions was one elaborate April Fool’s joke, but since it wasn’t—since it is an actual movie that got made—we’re here to review it.

Emily: So word on the street was there was a new thriller in town on Netflix. And it was #1 on the charts. And it was terrible. So you know I had to check that out. Yes, we're talking about DEADLY ILLUSIONS, the groundbreaking thriller starring Kristin Davis and Kelsey Grammer's daughter. I'm sure he's really proud. When I say this movie is groundbreaking, I just mean I have never seen a movie quite like this before. Even going into it knowing it was going to be bad, I really had no idea just how bad it was going to get.

(Spoilers ahead. You’re welcome.)

Kelli: Well, I didn't know that was Kelsey Grammer's daughter, so I've already learned something from this conversation.

Emily: I'm here for you, girl. I have this really bad habit of Googling things about a movie while I'm watching the movie.

Kelli: I also went into this movie with the intention of watching something terrible, and I will say that it surpassed expectations in that regard.

Emily: It was truly something else. Should we start by maybe talking about some of the things that made this movie so bad? Or should we try to explain the plot?

Kelli: I guess we should explain the plot just in case anyone here hasn't watched the movie and doesn't plan to. Deadly Illusions follows a mystery writer as she gets to work on the next book in her series, which she intends to finish in one week (???). She hires a nanny to watch over her unnamed and undeveloped children while she does this because her husband, that one actor, is busy doing a job (???).

Emily: To be fair... a lot of mystery novels feel like they were written in a week.

Kelli: Yeah, I guess that is a thing. It's just unfathomable to me as a person who takes several hours to write less than one thousand words.

Emily: The husband is Dermot Mulroney, who I think has only been in While You Were Sleeping. And a weird indie horror movie I saw at Sundance this year. 

Kelli: And also a brief stint on New Girl as the Older Man Zooey Deschanel dates for a while. He’s got a lot going on.

Emily: Ok so he's an A-list celeb my bad.

Kelli: Anyway, it turns out that this nanny is not okay.

Emily: Honestly, I forgot these people had kids. Even though they had a nanny.

Kelli: The kids are the opposite of instrumental to this plot. We learn early on that this writer—what is her name? I don't remember her name.

Emily: Charlotte from Sex and the City. I don’t remember the character’s name.

Kelli: So Charlotte from Sex and the City says that she "gets weird when she writes." And you know, it's true, she does get weird in that she smokes a cigar like it's a vape pen and writes by hand on loose leaf, unlined paper.

Emily: Right and like sometimes she can't tell fact from fiction.

Kelli: She literally has a stack of printer paper sitting on her desk and she just takes one sheet at a time and writes.

Emily: Clearly she must have a computer. At least get lined paper. What is wrong with you?

Kelli: Get a spiral bound notebook. Jesus. So some weird shit starts happening with this nanny, and Charlotte can't tell if she's imagining this stuff or dreaming it or if it's actually happening. It's unclear how any of this might be related to the story she's writing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we learn essentially nothing about her book.

Emily: Unless... this whole movie is her book.

Kelli: Anything is possible at this point.

Emily: We’ll get into theories later.

Kelli: So anyway, the nanny seems perfect at first. Charlotte is having sexual fantasies about her, but that's normal. However, it gets less normal when it seems like the nanny might be seducing both Charlotte AND her husband. But it's impossible to tell what's actually happening because, again, you KNOW how Charlotte gets when she writes.

Emily: Yeah, you know Charlotte. We know her so well we've given her a name that's probably not her name in the movie.

Kelli: Eventually we learn that this nanny, who is now college-aged, was raised by evil parents who locked her in a basement with all of her siblings, and once this was discovered she went to live with her aunt with multiple personality disorder, so naturally she ALSO has multiple personality disorder, but the other personality is her evil mother? I think.

Emily: Wow, is that what that was? I had no idea.

Kelli: I mean, don't take my word for it. I was high.

Emily: Okay but then. The ending. So basically Kelsey Grammer's daughter (the nanny) goes to kill While You Were Sleeping (Charlotte's husband) while he's in the shower.

Kelli: While You Were Showering.

Emily: Yes. She tells him that she gets what she wants whenever she wants it. But I'm like... confused about what it is that she wants?

Emily: Oh also Charlotte has a therapist BFF who might also be her therapist but might just be her gym buddy (unclear). And she's dead now. But was it Charlotte or was it Baby Grammer? We don't know.

Kelli: Yes, she was stabbed with a pair of scissors. She is also, notably, the only person of color in the movie. So that's fun.

Emily: Anyway, the last scene in the movie is Baby Grammer in a mental hospital (?) and Charlotte comes to visit her because I guess all is forgiven? Like it's ok that you murdered my best friend and tried to kill my husband. Let's play CRAZY EIGHTS!

Kelli: Well it wasn't Baby Grammer, it was Baby Grammer's Dead Mom Personality. According to my notes. (I don't have any notes.) So as long as Baby Grammer is just being Baby Grammer, she's fine. It's not her fault.

Emily: Oh that’s how it works. Okay. BUT THEN. SOMEONE leaves the hospital at the end of the movie. Is it Charlotte? Or is it Baby Grammer in disguise? We're supposed to wonder. But how would Baby Grammer have escaped? WHO KNOWS?

Kelli: Right, because it's the same disguise whoever murdered the therapist was wearing when she left the scene of the crime. The disguise is basically the cover of Where'd You Go Bernadette. 

Emily: This is true.

Kelli: So yeah, the first thing I want to say is that we do not mean to trivialize the MYRIAD of offensive things going on in this movie. But to try to cover the ways in which this movie insensitively and incorrectly portrays mental illness just wouldn't even be fun, so like. We're just going to focus on how stupid and bad this is. But just know: we know.

Emily: Right. This is not a good movie in any sense of the word. It's literally doing nothing right. But I think let's talk about some of the things that bothered us the most.

Kelli: Okay. I want to talk about how weird it was that this girl was so young and that I felt like the movie wanted it to be sexy, what was happening between them? I know she was supposed to be in college but she seemed like she was in high school, but maybe that's because her wardrobe was essentially that of Nancy from Stranger Things.

Emily: Right. And While You Were Showering and Charlotte are def old enough to be her parents.

Kelli: Yeah. It was just... not hot. At all. And I'm usually for lesbian love affairs, but this felt extremely gross.

Emily: I also just want to talk about Baby Grammer's character motivation. Because... she has none.

Kelli: Right, like what is her goal here?

Emily: She overhears Charlotte at the gym talking about needing a nanny and just becomes obsessed with her? But why? Is she secretly a big fan of her books? If so, why is she seducing the husband? Why does she kill the friend? Why does she try to kill the husband?

Kelli: Is her goal to have her all to herself? 

Emily: I do not know.

Kelli: Also, was all the lesbian stuff happening with her other personality? Or is that just something she and Charlotte are gonna have to quietly pretend never happened during their weekly mental hospital card game visits? It's not at all clear to me which of those parts even happened. I swear Charlotte wakes up from a dream like five times in a row and I'm like, when did you even go to sleep?

Emily: Yes. The scene where she's having dinner with everyone after seeing Baby Grammer and While You Were Showering get it on on the kitchen counter... It was like surrealist cinema.

Kelli: It was basically the dinner scene in Hereditary.

Emily: Truly.

Kelli: She starts screaming at Baby Grammer because she was fucking her husband in the other room during her dream and it was SO REALISTIC!!!! But I don't know if that part actually happened or if Baby Grammer only tried to seduce her husband that one time in the shower.

Emily: Right. But the husband also said something like "We can’t do this anymore" when she came to him in the shower. I DO NOT KNOW if any of this was real. Can we also talk about how non-surprising the reveal was that Baby Grammer wasn't from the nanny agency? Also this nanny agency is supposed to be so top notch, but all of those nannies she interviewed were HORRIBLE.

Kelli: Right, and then they just forgot to call her for SEVERAL MONTHS to tell her they couldn't find anyone else to send??? I think it was several months anyway. There were a couple of time jumps.

Emily: Which is also confusing because I thought she was writing this book in a week.

Kelli: Yeah, I'm pretty sure when the week ended was when Baby Grammer started crying to her and asked to never be let go. But I'm not sure if Charlotte decided to write slower on purpose or what. There's also a part where she goes in to talk to her agent and editor or whatever and they're like "what if you flip it and make your hero the antihero???" So maybe that's what she was doing.

Emily: Right which is what makes me think maybe this whole thing is supposed to be her book. But if it is her book, it's a really bad book.

Kelli: I mean, did we expect this woman to write a good book? With her bizarre writing habits? Also these people wear their SHOES in the house CONSTANTLY. She was sitting in her office wearing boots with her feet propped up on the desk while smoking her cigar. Disgusting.

Emily: I'm trying to understand the cigar, but I got nothing.

Kelli: I feel like they were trying to give her a quirky thing, but it just felt completely out of place to me. Because everything else about her is basic as hell. Including her taste in interior design, because WOW was this house hideous. So few windows for a mansion. Every time I saw her in a dark room I was like, you can afford better lighting than this. Also her outfits were wild. Three layers of trench coats with belts.

Emily: Clearly Charlotte purchased this home with a pool for the purpose of seducing the nanny. Like oh you don't have a swimsuit? Let me take mine off and you can wear mine.

Kelli: LOL yes. When she takes off her suit to skinny dip and then Baby Grammer puts on that same already damp swimsuit? Horrific. Bone-chilling. Begging for a yeast infection.

Emily: Yes absolutely. Really playing with fire.

Kelli: Basically, like you said earlier, everything about this was bad. I can't think of a single good thing to say.

Emily: Yeah, there was no redeeming moment. The acting was bad. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't funny. Okay it was sometimes funny.

Kelli: By accident. Did I scream with laughter a few times? Yes.

Emily: Right. Let's get into the theories about what was really going on in this movie. First, as I've mentioned, it could be that this whole thing is Charlotte's book. Which I don't love at all.

Kelli: Right, because if it's her book, it doesn't make sense. Like the book itself doesn’t make sense.

Emily: Exactly. Then there's the theory that this was all the nanny and her multiple personalities. But that doesn't explain the weird way Charlotte acts. And I still don't understand her motivation if this was all her. And no, "she's crazy" is not a motive. 

Kelli: Right. So I guess the third theory is that it's a combo. I keep thinking of ways to rationalize that ending. Like—the implication there is either that Baby Grammer escapes somehow wearing Charlotte's things, or that Charlotte is the one who also killed her therapist friend.

Emily: There are some hints too that maybe Charlotte is the crazy one and all the times she thought she was just hanging out with her friend in the gym she was actually at therapy appointments.

Kelli: Right, and then she killed her friend and pinned it on the nanny. But in that case, how do we explain the nanny almost murdering the husband? He clearly saw that it was her.

Emily: I think the problem is that the movie wants there to be several theories, but none of them fully work.

Kelli: Yeah, there are so many plot holes that it's more like one giant hole with some thread of plot stringing through the center of it.

Emily: There is no plot.

Kelli: There was no plot all along! This is the plot agency calling! We never sent a plot! We forgot! 

Emily: Wow. After all that time we spent explaining the plot. Then what is this plot wearing my wet bikini bottoms?!?!?

Kelli: FUCK.

Emily: If you don't believe us, please take a moment to read the reviews on Letterboxd.

Kelli: I can't wait to leave my own half star review.

Emily: "The most convincing performance was when that random lady kicked that dog and the dog was like hey don't kick me and whimpered away. That dog had me. Oscar-worthy performance from that dog."

Kelli: I have zero recollection of that happening. I probably blocked it out.

Emily: "there are two things in the world that i do not understand, how we are able to send photos/videos from a phone to another via bluetooth and this movie."

Kelli: "review for posterity and to remind anyone else who needs to hear it that just because you hear a film has queer elements doesn’t mean you have to watch it"

Emily: "anti milf propaganda"

Kelli: "alright who tf ripped my stevie nicks fanfic off of wattpad and turned it into this shit?!"

Emily: "a half star for the courage to release this"

Kelli: "You cannot apply a metric of “stars” to this movie.
“Stars” for a film that made me wonder how much of the interior of that home was actually outside? “Stars” for a picture that dared to ask “What if a woman smoked cigars like they were cigarettes and everyone pretended it was normal??” “Stars” for a feature that straight up refused to answer a single moment of plot that it brought to life??
No, stars cannot help you now, I’m afraid. I think this might be the most incredible movie ever made."

Emily: "I once watched a porn movie with a similar plot to this, but at least that was actually entertaining and made way more sense.”

Kelli: Well, I feel like that sums it up.

Emily: Do you have any last words for this movie before we never speak of it again?

Kelli: Absolutely not.

Emily: Bye, movie. If that is your real name.