Replace Elaine's murder with longer sex scenes. Make it so Mary researches Grace's background after learning about her not actually having been sent by the company. Now the movie actually has less plot holes.
It's like somebody started with a concept of softcore lesbian step-daughter wrapped into a classic nanny fantasy and sold the movie based on that. Then they just started filming without any concept of where it would go or how they would finish it. Like at one point the main character is the prime suspect in her best-friends murder and the police are like "we have you dead to rights, it's an open and shut case" and then explain all the evidence that proves she did it. For some reason they don't arrest her and next scene she is talking with her husband in the lobby of the police station who was like "where were you last night when you disappeared for three hours?" really driving home the point that she killed her best friend. Then she suddenly runs out of the police station all flustered and just drives away. That's literally the end of that plot line. The police never come looking for her, nor is she exonerated. There's no follow through on that whatsoever... She. Just. Leaves. Also there's no closure on whether the husband survives after being stabbed by the now visibly crazed nanny. One scene he's bleeding out in the shower and then the next they show the main character putting flowers at a grave and it's not clear whether it's her husband's grave or her best friend that she supposedly killed in some dissociative episode. Also the main character (a bestselling author) leaves her unpublished, hand-written manuscript worth $2 million by the grave because of course a best-selling author would just leave their hand-written unpublished manuscript in a public place because why not? Then she's visiting the now incarcerated nanny at what appears to be some secure group home for mental patients and when she leaves she's wearing the same outfit as she was when she was caught on camera leaving the crime scene of her best friend's murder and the dramatic music plays to indicate that this is some mind-bending twist when they already went out of their way to drive home the point that she was killer back at the police station. Camera pans up to the blue clouds in the sky... "The End" This is supremely irritating because all it does is rub your face in the fact that they didn't follow through on the murder of the best friend. She just lives happily ever after... Like how does that tie anything together?? It's like bad story telling of an unfinished story that got rushed to completion for the sake of producing softcore lesbian step-daughter porn as a twist on the classic "nanny seduces husband" trope.
@@Pablo360able evil twins are definitely a harmful sterotyopes. People could view twins as creepy for no reason other than they shared a womb at the same time.Its almost as bad as the "souless ginger" trope ive seen. The bottomline is nothing is orignial and hollywoo is lazy
honestly sick of movies pulling the lame "split personality" twist for killers or making people with dissociative identity disorder seem dangerous. most people with DID or other dissociative disorders are rarely dangerous to other people, they're usually a bigger danger to themselves. plus its really irritating that writers have chosen a disorder that literally comes from being horrifically abused as a young child and decided to make it seem like these people are horrible and killers.
My thoughts exactly. It's wrong on so many levels and in so many movies it's not even necessary. A mentally healthy person choosing these actions is much more terrifying than someone trying to protect themselves and shifting personalities. Fingers crossed this is the final installment of a garbage subgenre
Thank you for saying this! That's how I felt immediately when the twist was revealed and I haven't seen any other reviews talking about how damaging that trope is to the DID community.
Absolutely this. Also, it’s so strange when they infantilize the “insane/mentally unstable” characters once they start getting treatment for their mental health. So many weird mental health tropes in this movie
Meanwhile, my friend with DID keeps getting mad at a younger alter for drinking her milk tea so when she's conscious again, she's full and her drink is gone
Also I totally thought it was going to turn out that it was all in Mary's head and Mary was the predator in this situation because uhhhh she took her BRA SHOPPING?? like um., no that is not appropriate
That's what i thought too... That her writing process was gonna literally have her losing touch with reality.... But instead we get some lifetime movie twist that honestly makes the whole movie feel like a waste of time.
Still waiting for a movie where a character with DID doesn’t have an alter that’s a killer. Media really saw this a real condition that almost always is cause by trauma and went “hey, this sounds like a great plot twist for a murder mystery plot. Let’s do the same harmful plot twist 5,000 times until people get bored”
@@noiz1762 It was confirmed that Elliot had DID though, Mr. Robot was an alter of his that he was having mental breaks over trying to rationalize the gaps in time he had when he took over.
Wait I deadass thought that the “twist” was that Mary was imagining all of this in a “she lived the plot of her book” kind of way and the ending “twists” was the book taking over until the end (which is why I figured the acting got so campy) 🥲
I think a good ending for this would have been Mary being the killer and her blaming it on Grace who had DID. Maybe Mary picked Grace because of her mental health problems and used her as a scap goat
It worries me that there are ppl out there who take fiction as fact. I REALLY don’t want my entertainment watered down just because some ppl are too ignorant or lazy to educate themselves. Willing suspension of disbelief exists for a reason. I learned that in 4th grade ffs. 🤦♂️
@@nolaray1062 I know people who see one thing on the media or a rare instance of someone with a mental disorder such as Schizophrenia mistaking someone for something else and murdering them and just assuming everyone is like that and just negatively associating one insane case with an entire group of people who are entirely innocent. In a world where mental disorders like Depression and Anxiety seem to get so much attention and 'understand positivity' more serious mental disorders still go unnoticed and continue to get the shitty end of the stick and terrible stigma for no good reason. If people would simply take the time to separate fiction from reality the world would be a better place.
I’m more tired of the ppl who are too lazy to educate themselves on actual issues rather than taking works of fiction as textbook examples. I have bipolar disorder and I don’t mind when movies or books use it in a fictitious way. I DO mind when ppl assume thats how it is. But then again there are ppl who believe that there are fire breathing dragons hiding somewhere so humanity may just be doomed by the idiots no matter what.
A 2 million advance wouldn't be uncommon for a massive bestseller--7 figure deals are relatively "common"(ish) in that arena. (Leigh Bardugo, Sarah J Maass and VE Schwab got them in recent years, though all for multi-book contracts). There have also been multiple 7 figure deals for debuts in recent years, especially in YA. So yes that's BIG money but not too abnormal :) Publishing is wild.
@@SwellEntertainment Lindsay Ellis has a video about how to do just that from a base of being a UA-camr. She says it takes about 10 years. Ellis, I'm pretty sure, did not get 7 figures. She seems to be doing well though.
Ngl I don't like movies with characters that have DID. I feel like they are always horror movies in which the character with split personalities is the bad guy. It just makes DID seem dangerous and something to be feared when that's not normally the case
I don't have DID or schizophrenia or any disorders like that but wouldn't it make more sense if there was a horror movie about how people abuse people with mental illness/disabilities..?
I'm just so tired of the "ooooh multiple personalities make a person evil and bad" thing in films. I know three different systems and they're all great people with already hard enough lives, they deserve better than to only ever see themselves as villains.
I'm so happy people are talking about this I'm friends with a few systems too and they are some of the nicest and coolest people I have ever been able to talk to
I personally thought that the reason Mary gets mixed signals from Grace/Margaret is because Grace loves Mary as a mother and Margaret doesn't like it, so she tries to turn it sexual, hoping to scare Mary off, but it doesn't work so she's like "fuck it, let's try the husband then"
As an aspiring writer I too also only care about people if they have a book....perfect logic. Edit: omg fuck this movie for the horrible DiD twist. It’s not even an interesting twist anymore.
I dont personally have DID but i have a friend who does and every time they switch there's like 15 minutes of disassociation before the other alter can front so I really don't know where these movies are getting the "switching every sentence" thing
The switching every other sentence is for the most part an exaggeration- like it can definitely happen for short periods of time but it tends to mess up the system pretty bad- there’s a term for it but I don’t remember what it is. In general tho, just like with a lot of DID stuff, there is wild variation from system to system. I don’t have it but I’m close friends with 2 systems and am an obsessive researcher of things I don’t understand.
@@zacharyenglish2904 I agree. Rapid switching can happen but it usually doesn’t happen for a long time without fucking everyone up. Rapid switching is stressful
Other than the obvious issues with writers consistently presenting ppl w/ DID as evil, it also prevents them from actually writing well-written villains who are fully aware of all of their actions. They don’t want to deal with that so they create a “good” host and an “evil” alter and then don’t have to explain motivation beyond that
yeah, they didn't bother to give grace and margaret entirely separate personalities or understandable motivations because whoever wrote this script doesn't think of systems as human beings
It sounds like this film wanted its cake and to eat it too, like "I'm going to have a murder mystery but everyone's a suspect but never reveal key details because why would we do that?!"
Ngl, I enjoy an evil or antihero personality/possession/mind control storyline in fantasy/sci-if series (AoS Hydra Fitz, Teen Wolf Void Stiles, Supernatural Demon Dean and soulless Sam, The Magicians Monster Elliot etc), but when it comes to a more grounded stories and they keep depicting people with DID and dissociation dangerous, I can not get behind that. Find another twist would ya. Not all people that have gone through trauma want to stab and murder :/
if you want to make an evil twin film, just make an evil twin film! or demonic possession! doesn't have to be DID! i thought the memory gaps were going to be carbon monoxide poisoning in her writing room or something, weird that it's never explained
That would be a great twist. No real murder or sexual affairs, just, "I turn into a different person when I write... in my office with the slow leak from that pesky, non-working gas fireplace, I turn into a very sleepy and confused person. Man, it feels great to get out of there and get some fresh air at the bra store! That's one of my top five places to go to not write, think about boobs and how I might be into women."
They could have just had Grace be Manipulative and not have based anything on DID or mental disorders. But I guess Hollywood thinks we can’t have “crazy” or “evil” characters without giving them a reason to be so.
it’s so weird bcs it feels like the foreshadowing is indicating that MARY is going to have did. why.......... does grace have did. it’s like the writers forgot who was doing what halfway through.
When you brought up the split personality at first I thought you were talking about Mary because that would make more sense with her having memory gaps and saying she “becomes a different person” when she writes but no?? It’s the other girl
the plot twist of the movie aside, writing a 'split personality killer' is such a harmful trope to people with DID (Dissociative identity disorder). This movie coming out in 2021 is not good
@@littleleakyleakythere plus literally doing the thing horror films in the fucking 80s did where the black character dies first completely unironically? gross as fuck
On top of demonizing people with DID, which is awful and such a worn out gross trope, they are also demonizing WLW relationships, which is also gross and worn out. And i’m pretty sure they stole Grace’s story from a real life case. Oh- and the POC best friend character being killed for now real reason! This is just filled with yucky tropes that demonize marginalized communities.
Ah so another bad portrayal of DID and a flawed understanding of how the Protector works in a system? Love to see it! I think I'd prefer to have my teeth ripped out and hot glued back in than have to see this disgusting trope again 😌💕
With the unaddressed memory gaps and hallucinations this sounds like a mess of a script where they deleted the cause but not the effect, kinda like Heavy Rain if anyone's played that.
@@nicoleg6284 in case you didn't know, originally, Ethan and Shelby had a psychic link so every time a killing happened, Ethan blacked out and had nightmares of floodings.
@@SoaringLettuce I never knew that actually! Lol wow that really is left field considering the end product! It would have been interesting to see how that would have went over in a "how on earth do you begin to explain that" way lol
@@nicoleg6284 the scenes and the monologue explaining it do exist in some extra footage features, the supernatural aspect really was removed last minute.
You know, it really bugs me that the twist is that the sapphic character is secretly a "crazy dangerous DID stalker/killer who found a woman and decided to try and seduce her/her husband" honestly. Maybe it's just because I'm a lesbian and I'm a bit more sensitive to these things, but it bothers me that it's framed this way. The ableism of the DID twist... the way Grace is consistently portrayed as being predatory... trying to seduce Mary away from her family, basically a predatory homewrecker trying to "trick" Mary away from being straight... it bothers me. I feel like a story like this could work, maybe? But It really bugs me that the antagonist of a horror story is a sapphic women with DID, because it's not like WLW women and DID people don't face constant stereotypes of being predatory...
I never heard of this movie until now, but based on how you explained the plot, I thought the movie was gonna be the plot of the book the whole time or maybe the twist could've been that Grace/Margaret was a crazy stan who wanted to be with their fave author (Kinda like a Mercy-type situation).
Damn I know what you mean about not being able to take a hint. I once failed to read "lets watch a movie alone together in my bed" as a hint from a girl. Pretty sure that really hurt her, actually.
Jesus Christ why is the plot twist in so many movies that someone has multiple personalities and is evil? The way that we represent mental illness in media is fucked
When she was accusing the person of screwing her husband reminds me of that one part in Chicago with the “YOUVE BEEN SCREWING THE MILK MAN!! And he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife 10 TIMES!”
I was honestly thinking it was going to turn out there was no Grace, that Grace was the part of Mary that was left to take care of the children the house and maintain the relationship with her husband while the Mary part wrote. And the plot was her trying to piece together the two separate halves of her life.
Amanda you are a gem. Omg this move... like really... split personality disorder... my dude this just tells me they are not creative enough to write a decent ending/twist with out using this over done and not ever done well trope. Let me recommend The Handmaiden (2016) and Knives Out (2019).
@@kerenescobar7273 SPOILER: Yes. The movie was framed as a "Who dunnit" movie it was obvious that she wasn't the actual murderer and that they'd have to been a twist. I assumed she switched the bottle but it was the wrong bottle which was actually the right bottle. Then with the movie progressing it made sense it was Chris Evans. Why the fuck would a "Who dunnit" movie reveal the murder in the first par of the movie. They ruined it with the execution. Still a very enjoyable movie with a great cast but yeah.
@@ArturGlass.C MORE SPOILERS: I respectfully disagree. They toss out the whole "who's the bad guy" "who done it" early on because well... that's kinda an old trope and instead focuses on the motivation (everyones, and and everyone motivation matters and pushes the story forward), why, and how he did it. We learn more and more about these characters and then at the end we find out how Chris dose it (switching the tags)... and when we find out that she actually gave him the right one and its sad and bittersweet because none of this had to happen. The execution was phenomenal. But hey at the end of the day it was SO much better that Deadly Illusions.
The first half of this movie is just a whole lot of slow build to what easily could've been a great psychological thriller, then the second half drops the ball hard. The movie is at its best when it makes you wonder who is the one causing the problems that'll eventually reach a tipping point. Early on it's Tom, as we find out he's lost half of their money on an impulsive decision, and that it's not the first time. This puts stress on Mary because that's ultimately what gives her incentive to write the sequel. Next, it's Grace A.K.A, wasted potential. Her introduction heavily paints her as "off" but then the proceeding 30 minutes keeps suggesting that it's nothing sinister. Then it's Mary, the highlight of the movie. When she starts playing with the idea of "using" Grace, lines get blurred and I was hoping for a twist that Grace wasn't the problem, Mary was. I'm already putting much more thought into this than the writers so I'll stop, but long story short? I was actively rewriting the movie during the second half, the climax dropped the ball, and the movie should've been about breaking the camel's back.
But you're definitely right though. You had this slow burn that really felt like it was going to be a hard hitting psychological thriller.... Then it ends up just being some really generic lifetime movie when the second half hits. Wasting any potential that it had in the first half.
i watched this movie and the ending upset me beyond reason ... if y’all are THAT interested in this type of subplot but hate disappointment, watch “Something about Renee” the Proud Fanily episode with the perfect babysitter. It’s shorter and surprisingly better written
I completely cracked up when Mary ran into the kitchen and hides in the fridge to get away from Margaret 😂 also, they again used DID in a really weird and bad way, this could’ve been so much better without all the seggs-scenes at the beginning of the movie with Mary & Tom.
@@justasleebylilguylittlesle1496 If Mary was the killer, though, it would be Mary trying to take advantage of a girl with DID to frame her rather than her actually being the dangerous one.
So we have a person with DID because she has been abused as a child, a woman awakening to her bisexuality and a black best friend the black best friend is killed, the person with DID turns out to be evil and the bisexual woman might be the killer Why do people keep using the same tired tropes in movies? Like, these tropes are harmful and have been played out so much that they aren't even good storytelling anymore, if ever. Hollywood, just stop.
your movie/show reviews are my favorite to watch!!! pls never stop i honestly just wanna listen to u tell me stories all day long and not even watch the movies
I thought that grace was a crazy stalker fan who drugged and gaslighted mary just to be a part of Mary's life. And I think my twist was a better one than the movies. Because they could've still used most of the plot and it would've made sense.
Right! A "split personality" felt offensive and wrong, and even unoriginal. Mary could still have sympathy for Grace even tho she would just be a "crazy stalker" because of what happened to her and her siblings growing up. That would've been more progressive and original! Whyyyy chose the DID path with no reason at all except "ooooh person with did equals crazy dangerous" * spooky sounds *
Wait, so the twist is multiple personality disorder? What a novel idea. It's a wonder why Dissociative Identity Disorder isn't explored more in the Psychological Thriller genre.
Mary didn’t need any “evidence” or “real reason to believe Grace/Margaret was the killer” because it’s a movie so a person with DID literally can’t be anything other than a spooky scary murderer OBVIOUSLY 🙃
yeah. i rlly like danganronpa, but holy shit does it have issues. like how horrible its portrayal of trauma and of mental & personality illnesses/disorders is. especially, obvsly, with DID.
someone in my system (an old host) loved danganronpa a few years back. i honestly can’t even play the games anymore because of how toko and syo were handled. it’s a shame, i want to like the games still but i just cant bring myself to.
anyway if ur a system reading this i hope your day is going alright and if it's not i hope it gets better really soon. i promise there are people in the world who care about you and don't see you this way. you deserve safety and happiness and respect.
Why would a traumatized girl's alter be an unrepentant murderer? I get how she might be hypersexual but the murderer thing is so dumb and demonizing. A better twist would be that Mary WAS the murderer and framed GRACE for the murder of Elaine after figuring out that Grace had DID. Mary's motivation for killing Tom (He cheated on her AFTER getting them both into massive debt) is much stronger than Grace's AND Mary seems to be the one with the power in the relationship. It would even make sense for maybe her and Grace's alter to fight at the end (but not a murder-fight) if she figured out Mary's plan and was genuinely trying to protect Grace from Mary.
I guessed the nanny was the “villain” at the start, then the scene where Mary’s publishers are like, “what if the main character is the killer!?” So I thought, “oh, foreshadowing”. Then the friend kept popping up and for a second I thought, “What if the friend is behind it all? Is this movie that stupid?” Turns out the only reason the “twist” could count as a twist is if you give the writers way more credit than they deserve. So sure movie, ya got me. 👍🏻
This felt like two different movies pushed together lol Elaine was a much better friend than Mary deserved, and idk why she had to die. She was literally the only death in the movie for no real reason.
If they'd just go full out and given Mary AND Grace alternate personalities, then the four of them could seduce Dermot Mulrooney and turn this love triangle into the rare "love pentagon"
Thank you for this review! I was interested for the wlw aspect but I definitely dont want to support something vilifying DID. Also as someone who suffers from memory and time loss similar to Mary it sucks seeing it like this.
I just watched this movie The Rhythm Section that I really wanted to like because I thought Blake Lively was really good in it, but it was honestly poorly edited and poorly structured. It’s on Hulu (I think) and would be curious to hear your thoughts on it. Has some similar problems to this one though.
As a random person who's trying to write a story with accurate portrayals of certain personality disorders, what the hell. These people with millions of dollars can't do even basic research about DID?
whenever you find something particularly rediculous you giggle like that news anchorman reporting in front of a pile of burning drugs ♡ such a wholesome laugh.
Seems interesting. There is a term called unreliable narrator, which is not really implementable into film. Without watching it myself, I can't say if Deadly Illusions is an example to why that is, or a showcase of the possibilities of its implementation.
This was a swell review!! It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on "I Care A Lot" (2020) and the movie's failure to create a likeable anti-hero :))
This sounds like a script that started as porn, and someone thought they were clever enough to take out the porn and write-in a real mystery.
That was exactly my thought. Like way to ruin a good porn. As a porn it's solid af as a movie tho it's bad. Should've stayed in your lane.
Replace Elaine's murder with longer sex scenes. Make it so Mary researches Grace's background after learning about her not actually having been sent by the company. Now the movie actually has less plot holes.
Split personalities are so 2005.
It's like somebody started with a concept of softcore lesbian step-daughter wrapped into a classic nanny fantasy and sold the movie based on that. Then they just started filming without any concept of where it would go or how they would finish it.
Like at one point the main character is the prime suspect in her best-friends murder and the police are like "we have you dead to rights, it's an open and shut case" and then explain all the evidence that proves she did it. For some reason they don't arrest her and next scene she is talking with her husband in the lobby of the police station who was like "where were you last night when you disappeared for three hours?" really driving home the point that she killed her best friend. Then she suddenly runs out of the police station all flustered and just drives away. That's literally the end of that plot line. The police never come looking for her, nor is she exonerated. There's no follow through on that whatsoever... She. Just. Leaves.
Also there's no closure on whether the husband survives after being stabbed by the now visibly crazed nanny. One scene he's bleeding out in the shower and then the next they show the main character putting flowers at a grave and it's not clear whether it's her husband's grave or her best friend that she supposedly killed in some dissociative episode. Also the main character (a bestselling author) leaves her unpublished, hand-written manuscript worth $2 million by the grave because of course a best-selling author would just leave their hand-written unpublished manuscript in a public place because why not?
Then she's visiting the now incarcerated nanny at what appears to be some secure group home for mental patients and when she leaves she's wearing the same outfit as she was when she was caught on camera leaving the crime scene of her best friend's murder and the dramatic music plays to indicate that this is some mind-bending twist when they already went out of their way to drive home the point that she was killer back at the police station. Camera pans up to the blue clouds in the sky... "The End" This is supremely irritating because all it does is rub your face in the fact that they didn't follow through on the murder of the best friend. She just lives happily ever after...
Like how does that tie anything together?? It's like bad story telling of an unfinished story that got rushed to completion for the sake of producing softcore lesbian step-daughter porn as a twist on the classic "nanny seduces husband" trope.
"Take out the porn" ? Did you not watch the bathtub scene?
split personality is almost as bad as 'it was all a dream' when it comes to twists
yeah.
And the identical twin
personally think it's worse with how damaging it is to the way people view DID
_...I used to read word-up magazine_
imo it's worse
I'd rather have a comeback of evil twins than all these "evil split personality" movies
at least evil twins aren't a real, harmful stereotype (I hope).
We need more evil twins
I'd pay good money for Devito and Arnie volume 2!
@@katenz100 omg I googled it because of this comment I LOVE that that movie even exist. Now I need a sequel of them turning evil.
@@Pablo360able evil twins are definitely a harmful sterotyopes. People could view twins as creepy for no reason other than they shared a womb at the same time.Its almost as bad as the "souless ginger" trope ive seen. The bottomline is nothing is orignial and hollywoo is lazy
honestly sick of movies pulling the lame "split personality" twist for killers or making people with dissociative identity disorder seem dangerous. most people with DID or other dissociative disorders are rarely dangerous to other people, they're usually a bigger danger to themselves. plus its really irritating that writers have chosen a disorder that literally comes from being horrifically abused as a young child and decided to make it seem like these people are horrible and killers.
yeah.
My thoughts exactly. It's wrong on so many levels and in so many movies it's not even necessary. A mentally healthy person choosing these actions is much more terrifying than someone trying to protect themselves and shifting personalities. Fingers crossed this is the final installment of a garbage subgenre
Thank you for saying this! That's how I felt immediately when the twist was revealed and I haven't seen any other reviews talking about how damaging that trope is to the DID community.
Absolutely this. Also, it’s so strange when they infantilize the “insane/mentally unstable” characters once they start getting treatment for their mental health. So many weird mental health tropes in this movie
WOOO SAY IT LOUDER
Meanwhile, my friend with DID keeps getting mad at a younger alter for drinking her milk tea so when she's conscious again, she's full and her drink is gone
that is so cute
So wholesome
That’s adorable, I’d be annoyed too lol
I’d watch that show
Also I totally thought it was going to turn out that it was all in Mary's head and Mary was the predator in this situation because uhhhh she took her BRA SHOPPING?? like um., no that is not appropriate
That's what i thought too... That her writing process was gonna literally have her losing touch with reality.... But instead we get some lifetime movie twist that honestly makes the whole movie feel like a waste of time.
and the fact she went into the dressing room!! like my mom doesn’t even do that with me lol what
Exactly
Still waiting for a movie where a character with DID doesn’t have an alter that’s a killer. Media really saw this a real condition that almost always is cause by trauma and went “hey, this sounds like a great plot twist for a murder mystery plot. Let’s do the same harmful plot twist 5,000 times until people get bored”
god same. mr robot is the only piece of media i've seen that handles DID well, i think.
@@btmlsmlk he had a psychotic disorder not DID
@@noiz1762 It was confirmed that Elliot had DID though, Mr. Robot was an alter of his that he was having mental breaks over trying to rationalize the gaps in time he had when he took over.
Not a movie, but Ace Attorney 6 subverts the DID-killer cliche. It's notable because the whole franchise is about the player figuring out murders
I’ve only seen United States of Tara handle DID without someone being a killer.
Wait I deadass thought that the “twist” was that Mary was imagining all of this in a “she lived the plot of her book” kind of way and the ending “twists” was the book taking over until the end (which is why I figured the acting got so campy) 🥲
honestly that would have been better
I had that thought as well!!
That would have been better
same!!!! i thought mary was either entirely imagining grace actually existed or she was entirely imagining all of their encounters
Me too and that would have been so much better.
“I don’t think that a mix-signal, I think that’s a billboard.” Glorious!!!
I think a good ending for this would have been Mary being the killer and her blaming it on Grace who had DID. Maybe Mary picked Grace because of her mental health problems and used her as a scap goat
Please write stories
@@Sonicsis its aways been a dream of mine
@@sabrinacarper3187 or... has it? DUN DUN DUN 😱
@@kerrychristensen7204 lol, typo plot twist
i was literally thinking the same thing
UghhhhhhhHhhhhHhhhhhh of course it’s a “DID scary 🥺” trope
My ex girlfriend had did, and she wasn't some scary movie type cereal killer, I hate movies like that
It worries me that there are ppl out there who take fiction as fact. I REALLY don’t want my entertainment watered down just because some ppl are too ignorant or lazy to educate themselves. Willing suspension of disbelief exists for a reason. I learned that in 4th grade ffs. 🤦♂️
@@nolaray1062 I know people who see one thing on the media or a rare instance of someone with a mental disorder such as Schizophrenia mistaking someone for something else and murdering them and just assuming everyone is like that and just negatively associating one insane case with an entire group of people who are entirely innocent. In a world where mental disorders like Depression and Anxiety seem to get so much attention and 'understand positivity' more serious mental disorders still go unnoticed and continue to get the shitty end of the stick and terrible stigma for no good reason. If people would simply take the time to separate fiction from reality the world would be a better place.
@@sarcasm8007 scream it louder! Separate fiction from reality! It’s ridiculous how some ppl seem unable to do that.
Sup Pixie ❤️
Kinda tired of these movies that frame people with DID as evil. The way people with mental illnesses is portrayed in media is so bad
Right! And then the “evil” character with the mental health disorder is infantilized once they start treatment for their disorder. So weird and bad
I’m more tired of the ppl who are too lazy to educate themselves on actual issues rather than taking works of fiction as textbook examples. I have bipolar disorder and I don’t mind when movies or books use it in a fictitious way. I DO mind when ppl assume thats how it is. But then again there are ppl who believe that there are fire breathing dragons hiding somewhere so humanity may just be doomed by the idiots no matter what.
Ikr! Esp cuz ppl with DID only get it from going through severe trauma as children, like their the victims of abuse not the abusers
They make mental illness so hip and stylish and it's not.
A 2 million advance wouldn't be uncommon for a massive bestseller--7 figure deals are relatively "common"(ish) in that arena. (Leigh Bardugo, Sarah J Maass and VE Schwab got them in recent years, though all for multi-book contracts). There have also been multiple 7 figure deals for debuts in recent years, especially in YA. So yes that's BIG money but not too abnormal :) Publishing is wild.
As I recall, Bill Clinton got a then record $10 million 20 years ago. And that was as a first time non-fiction author.
remind me to get into the YA game
@@SwellEntertainment It is a total shitshow, but I'd be happy to help :P
@@SwellEntertainment Lindsay Ellis has a video about how to do just that from a base of being a UA-camr. She says it takes about 10 years. Ellis, I'm pretty sure, did not get 7 figures. She seems to be doing well though.
The Obamas got a $65M book advance.
Ngl I don't like movies with characters that have DID. I feel like they are always horror movies in which the character with split personalities is the bad guy. It just makes DID seem dangerous and something to be feared when that's not normally the case
I don't have DID or schizophrenia or any disorders like that but wouldn't it make more sense if there was a horror movie about how people abuse people with mental illness/disabilities..?
if they dont turn out to be evil they end up lying about having it
I think the show “Mr. Robot” has a good representation of DID, and the person having it is the main protagonist 🤷🏻♀️
United States of tara did an excellent portrayal of someone with DID
One day I'm gonna make a movie where the protagonist has DID and they defeat the villain despite the challenges
I'm just so tired of the "ooooh multiple personalities make a person evil and bad" thing in films. I know three different systems and they're all great people with already hard enough lives, they deserve better than to only ever see themselves as villains.
I KNOW. Im sick of it, its gross and needs to stop
@@Icarus2134 Ever Since Split it seems like every month theres a new split personality movie
agreed that's not how it works.
Amen.
I'm so happy people are talking about this I'm friends with a few systems too and they are some of the nicest and coolest people I have ever been able to talk to
sksksk as an actual assistant who works in publishing, i'd be sacked on the spot if i talked to an author like that 💀💀
I personally thought that the reason Mary gets mixed signals from Grace/Margaret is because Grace loves Mary as a mother and Margaret doesn't like it, so she tries to turn it sexual, hoping to scare Mary off, but it doesn't work so she's like "fuck it, let's try the husband then"
I love when Hollywood lets it slip that they have no idea how stocks work
I did a stock and now I'm broke. Who could have ever predicted it ?!! Certainly not the stock market. /s
@@ArturGlass.C “I did a stock” 😂
Hot Take: Amanda’s reviews are always better than the actual movie
Yup I’m not even planning to watch the movie. Amanda did a great job telling the story lol
I've often watched Amanda instead of actual movies or series. Lol.
(Other Amanda too)
I think it's because she reviews mostly bad or mediocre movies lol.
True i watch her videos so i dont waste my time on these movies
Kinda tired of DID always being used as a plot device in horror movies. Most DID sufferers aren’t dangerous
As an aspiring writer I too also only care about people if they have a book....perfect logic.
Edit: omg fuck this movie for the horrible DiD twist. It’s not even an interesting twist anymore.
*aspiring
@@orimengu ......you know what that is incredibly ironic considering the writer thing lol
same.
20:08 the nanny turning out to be a demon monster or possessd actually sounds interesting, but I'm guessing that's not what the twist is.
that could work, or that the mc just imagined grace to make herself feel more appreciated.
I dont personally have DID but i have a friend who does and every time they switch there's like 15 minutes of disassociation before the other alter can front so I really don't know where these movies are getting the "switching every sentence" thing
The switching every other sentence is for the most part an exaggeration- like it can definitely happen for short periods of time but it tends to mess up the system pretty bad- there’s a term for it but I don’t remember what it is. In general tho, just like with a lot of DID stuff, there is wild variation from system to system. I don’t have it but I’m close friends with 2 systems and am an obsessive researcher of things I don’t understand.
@@zacharyenglish2904 I agree. Rapid switching can happen but it usually doesn’t happen for a long time without fucking everyone up. Rapid switching is stressful
I got more co fronting vibes from it? Like they can both speak but only her alter has control of the body
Other than the obvious issues with writers consistently presenting ppl w/ DID as evil, it also prevents them from actually writing well-written villains who are fully aware of all of their actions. They don’t want to deal with that so they create a “good” host and an “evil” alter and then don’t have to explain motivation beyond that
There's also an overlap there since the crossdressing murderers are explained as having split personalities
wow another movie demonizing DID!! this is totally not awful
yeah, they didn't bother to give grace and margaret entirely separate personalities or understandable motivations because whoever wrote this script doesn't think of systems as human beings
It sounds like this film wanted its cake and to eat it too, like "I'm going to have a murder mystery but everyone's a suspect but never reveal key details because why would we do that?!"
I need a flowchart to understand what happened in this movie
I think the writers needs it too ngl
Nothing good. Now you know 👍🏻
Ngl, I enjoy an evil or antihero personality/possession/mind control storyline in fantasy/sci-if series (AoS Hydra Fitz, Teen Wolf Void Stiles, Supernatural Demon Dean and soulless Sam, The Magicians Monster Elliot etc), but when it comes to a more grounded stories and they keep depicting people with DID and dissociation dangerous, I can not get behind that. Find another twist would ya. Not all people that have gone through trauma want to stab and murder :/
Void Stiles was hella cool of a trope ngl.
@@ArturGlass.C agreed. Season 3 was my personal favorite, and Void Stiles was the main reason for it.
I literally love that trope too !! Especially when a beloved character is possessed like Void Stiles AHH amazing
I agree it works in fantasy, but DID is not fantasy its real and they ruin perception of DID by doing this
if you want to make an evil twin film, just make an evil twin film! or demonic possession! doesn't have to be DID! i thought the memory gaps were going to be carbon monoxide poisoning in her writing room or something, weird that it's never explained
That would be a great twist. No real murder or sexual affairs, just, "I turn into a different person when I write... in my office with the slow leak from that pesky, non-working gas fireplace, I turn into a very sleepy and confused person. Man, it feels great to get out of there and get some fresh air at the bra store! That's one of my top five places to go to not write, think about boobs and how I might be into women."
They could have just had Grace be Manipulative and not have based anything on DID or mental disorders. But I guess Hollywood thinks we can’t have “crazy” or “evil” characters without giving them a reason to be so.
Thanks for reviewing this movie so we don't have to! 🙆♀️
How did you post 18 hours ago
@@iscott3187 probably Patreon
Amanda. Queen of "I will waste my time and money so thousands of others wont have to"
I unfortunately watched this... I was hoping they’d go the route of the nanny didn’t exist but NOOOO
Why is this one day old💀
You've also got the evergreen trope of the hyper sexual bisexual femme fatal.
Ah, yes. My favorite prerequisite for a nanny. Reading.
Illiterate nannies are of less value
The ending should be the whole point of a thriller.
it’s so weird bcs it feels like the foreshadowing is indicating that MARY is going to have did. why.......... does grace have did. it’s like the writers forgot who was doing what halfway through.
So you're telling me that they basically took the Gollum/Smeagol situation and made it ✨sexy✨
When you brought up the split personality at first I thought you were talking about Mary because that would make more sense with her having memory gaps and saying she “becomes a different person” when she writes but no?? It’s the other girl
I think Mary and Grace are maybe the same people.
the plot twist of the movie aside, writing a 'split personality killer' is such a harmful trope to people with DID (Dissociative identity disorder). This movie coming out in 2021 is not good
And honestly demonizing wlw as well? Really nasty all around.
@@littleleakyleakythere plus literally doing the thing horror films in the fucking 80s did where the black character dies first completely unironically? gross as fuck
On top of demonizing people with DID, which is awful and such a worn out gross trope, they are also demonizing WLW relationships, which is also gross and worn out. And i’m pretty sure they stole Grace’s story from a real life case. Oh- and the POC best friend character being killed for now real reason! This is just filled with yucky tropes that demonize marginalized communities.
Ah so another bad portrayal of DID and a flawed understanding of how the Protector works in a system? Love to see it! I think I'd prefer to have my teeth ripped out and hot glued back in than have to see this disgusting trope again 😌💕
Ugh me too I’m literally just gonna write my own murder mystery about someone with DID that doesn’t end with them being a killer
@@mercurywise4047 please send it to me when you’re done. I’d love to see it.
Honestly hate it when people paint persecutors in systems as violent people. They are just misguided protectors and shouldn’t be treated poorly
Protectors deserve more love they shouldn't be seen as villains they have feelings too
@@Your_Local_Bushman very true
With the unaddressed memory gaps and hallucinations this sounds like a mess of a script where they deleted the cause but not the effect, kinda like Heavy Rain if anyone's played that.
I was thinking the same thing lol heavy rain felt like it was going some where then dropped the concept just like this movie it's so annoying
@@nicoleg6284 in case you didn't know, originally, Ethan and Shelby had a psychic link so every time a killing happened, Ethan blacked out and had nightmares of floodings.
@@SoaringLettuce I never knew that actually! Lol wow that really is left field considering the end product! It would have been interesting to see how that would have went over in a "how on earth do you begin to explain that" way lol
@@nicoleg6284 the scenes and the monologue explaining it do exist in some extra footage features, the supernatural aspect really was removed last minute.
@@SoaringLettuce Wished they did a better job covering up that choice with Ethan section and the plotholes
You know, it really bugs me that the twist is that the sapphic character is secretly a "crazy dangerous DID stalker/killer who found a woman and decided to try and seduce her/her husband" honestly. Maybe it's just because I'm a lesbian and I'm a bit more sensitive to these things, but it bothers me that it's framed this way. The ableism of the DID twist... the way Grace is consistently portrayed as being predatory... trying to seduce Mary away from her family, basically a predatory homewrecker trying to "trick" Mary away from being straight... it bothers me. I feel like a story like this could work, maybe? But It really bugs me that the antagonist of a horror story is a sapphic women with DID, because it's not like WLW women and DID people don't face constant stereotypes of being predatory...
I never heard of this movie until now, but based on how you explained the plot, I thought the movie was gonna be the plot of the book the whole time or maybe the twist could've been that Grace/Margaret was a crazy stan who wanted to be with their fave author (Kinda like a Mercy-type situation).
Misery ?
@@ArturGlass.C Oh damn! I completely mixed that up! 😓
Damn I know what you mean about not being able to take a hint. I once failed to read "lets watch a movie alone together in my bed" as a hint from a girl. Pretty sure that really hurt her, actually.
Movies need to stay as far away from DID as possible
Jesus Christ why is the plot twist in so many movies that someone has multiple personalities and is evil? The way that we represent mental illness in media is fucked
Well, what you sow is what you reap. Have happy suffering with this.
"Don't worry she won't remember any of this" sounds like Margaret talking about Grace.
I feel like you put way more thought into this video than the filmmakers put into their movie.
God i love movies that portray mentally ill people as dangerous and violent. Certainly not problematic at all.
I love Amanda, she informs me of new movies to not watch!
When she was accusing the person of screwing her husband reminds me of that one part in Chicago with the “YOUVE BEEN SCREWING THE MILK MAN!! And he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife 10 TIMES!”
But why would Margaret be suggestive towards Mary if she didn't want Mary and Grace to get close
I was honestly thinking it was going to turn out there was no Grace, that Grace was the part of Mary that was left to take care of the
children the house and maintain the relationship with her husband while the Mary part wrote. And the plot was her trying to piece together the two separate halves of her life.
I love your honest objective take on entertainment, please don't change. Your authenticity is appreciated.
Amanda you are a gem. Omg this move... like really... split personality disorder... my dude this just tells me they are not creative enough to write a decent ending/twist with out using this over done and not ever done well trope. Let me recommend The Handmaiden (2016) and Knives Out (2019).
Knives Out was really not a good twist tho. I really enjoyed the movie but the twist was extremely obvious.
@@ArturGlass.C ENDING TWIST SPOILER:
You knew that she had given him the right dose all along...
@@kerenescobar7273 SPOILER:
Yes. The movie was framed as a "Who dunnit" movie it was obvious that she wasn't the actual murderer and that they'd have to been a twist. I assumed she switched the bottle but it was the wrong bottle which was actually the right bottle. Then with the movie progressing it made sense it was Chris Evans.
Why the fuck would a "Who dunnit" movie reveal the murder in the first par of the movie. They ruined it with the execution. Still a very enjoyable movie with a great cast but yeah.
Those two movies were so good! I could watch them 15 times and still enjoy them.
@@ArturGlass.C MORE SPOILERS:
I respectfully disagree. They toss out the whole "who's the bad guy" "who done it" early on because well... that's kinda an old trope and instead focuses on the motivation (everyones, and and everyone motivation matters and pushes the story forward), why, and how he did it. We learn more and more about these characters and then at the end we find out how Chris dose it (switching the tags)... and when we find out that she actually gave him the right one and its sad and bittersweet because none of this had to happen. The execution was phenomenal. But hey at the end of the day it was SO much better that Deadly Illusions.
read that as "Daddy Illusions" and was so confused
The first half of this movie is just a whole lot of slow build to what easily could've been a great psychological thriller, then the second half drops the ball hard.
The movie is at its best when it makes you wonder who is the one causing the problems that'll eventually reach a tipping point.
Early on it's Tom, as we find out he's lost half of their money on an impulsive decision, and that it's not the first time. This puts stress on Mary because that's ultimately what gives her incentive to write the sequel.
Next, it's Grace A.K.A, wasted potential. Her introduction heavily paints her as "off" but then the proceeding 30 minutes keeps suggesting that it's nothing sinister.
Then it's Mary, the highlight of the movie. When she starts playing with the idea of "using" Grace, lines get blurred and I was hoping for a twist that Grace wasn't the problem, Mary was.
I'm already putting much more thought into this than the writers so I'll stop, but long story short? I was actively rewriting the movie during the second half, the climax dropped the ball, and the movie should've been about breaking the camel's back.
But you're definitely right though. You had this slow burn that really felt like it was going to be a hard hitting psychological thriller.... Then it ends up just being some really generic lifetime movie when the second half hits. Wasting any potential that it had in the first half.
I don’t know why you make films sound more interesting then what they probably are, but now I want to watch this so bad
Me: I-Is it a netflix movie?
SE: It's a netflix movie.
Me: Aaaahhhh say no more.
this sounds like something from lifetime
i watched this movie and the ending upset me beyond reason ... if y’all are THAT interested in this type of subplot but hate disappointment, watch “Something about Renee” the Proud Fanily episode with the perfect babysitter. It’s shorter and surprisingly better written
I completely cracked up when Mary ran into the kitchen and hides in the fridge to get away from Margaret 😂 also, they again used DID in a really weird and bad way, this could’ve been so much better without all the seggs-scenes at the beginning of the movie with Mary & Tom.
My plot twist would have made you think it's an alter ego, then have it be a totally different person all togetger
What if it's like "we made you think it was an "DID evil" trope but she ACTUALLY has an evil twin!"
@@justasleebylilguylittlesle1496 If Mary was the killer, though, it would be Mary trying to take advantage of a girl with DID to frame her rather than her actually being the dangerous one.
I'd never even heard of this movie
Same
So we have a person with DID because she has been abused as a child, a woman awakening to her bisexuality and a black best friend
the black best friend is killed, the person with DID turns out to be evil and the bisexual woman might be the killer
Why do people keep using the same tired tropes in movies? Like, these tropes are harmful and have been played out so much that they aren't even good storytelling anymore, if ever. Hollywood, just stop.
I spent all day yesterday binging your content so when I clicked this video my cat rolled his eyes at me
your movie/show reviews are my favorite to watch!!! pls never stop i honestly just wanna listen to u tell me stories all day long and not even watch the movies
I thought that grace was a crazy stalker fan who drugged and gaslighted mary just to be a part of Mary's life. And I think my twist was a better one than the movies. Because they could've still used most of the plot and it would've made sense.
I thought the same thing when I was watching it!! Would have been way better then the DID twist
Right! A "split personality" felt offensive and wrong, and even unoriginal. Mary could still have sympathy for Grace even tho she would just be a "crazy stalker" because of what happened to her and her siblings growing up. That would've been more progressive and original! Whyyyy chose the DID path with no reason at all except "ooooh person with did equals crazy dangerous" * spooky sounds *
the writers for this movie definitely don't understand how DID works and just wanted to do the whole "sexy split personality" trope
Wait, so the twist is multiple personality disorder? What a novel idea. It's a wonder why Dissociative Identity Disorder isn't explored more in the Psychological Thriller genre.
This is sarcasm, right?? 😭
@@jas7687 I hope it is please-
Mary didn’t need any “evidence” or “real reason to believe Grace/Margaret was the killer” because it’s a movie so a person with DID literally can’t be anything other than a spooky scary murderer OBVIOUSLY 🙃
So it's a mix of Fight Club and Before I Go to Sleep, with a Lifetime vibe thrown in there? that's what i got from the plot and the footage used.
That nail polish color looks soo good with your skin tone!
No one is mentioning how similar the split personality + murdering people with scissors is literally Toko/Genocide Jill from Danganronpa 💀
yeah. i rlly like danganronpa, but holy shit does it have issues.
like how horrible its portrayal of trauma and of mental & personality illnesses/disorders is. especially, obvsly, with DID.
someone in my system (an old host) loved danganronpa a few years back. i honestly can’t even play the games anymore because of how toko and syo were handled. it’s a shame, i want to like the games still but i just cant bring myself to.
anyway if ur a system reading this i hope your day is going alright and if it's not i hope it gets better really soon. i promise there are people in the world who care about you and don't see you this way. you deserve safety and happiness and respect.
That’s not mixed signals...THATS A BILLBOARD! 💀💀💀
Why would a traumatized girl's alter be an unrepentant murderer? I get how she might be hypersexual but the murderer thing is so dumb and demonizing. A better twist would be that Mary WAS the murderer and framed GRACE for the murder of Elaine after figuring out that Grace had DID. Mary's motivation for killing Tom (He cheated on her AFTER getting them both into massive debt) is much stronger than Grace's AND Mary seems to be the one with the power in the relationship. It would even make sense for maybe her and Grace's alter to fight at the end (but not a murder-fight) if she figured out Mary's plan and was genuinely trying to protect Grace from Mary.
Fucking Love Your Intro; Don't Change It, It Is YOU!!!
I guessed the nanny was the “villain” at the start, then the scene where Mary’s publishers are like, “what if the main character is the killer!?” So I thought, “oh, foreshadowing”. Then the friend kept popping up and for a second I thought, “What if the friend is behind it all? Is this movie that stupid?” Turns out the only reason the “twist” could count as a twist is if you give the writers way more credit than they deserve. So sure movie, ya got me. 👍🏻
it would be nice to see a film one day where the character with DID isnt a murderous psychopath......
This felt like two different movies pushed together lol
Elaine was a much better friend than Mary deserved, and idk why she had to die. She was literally the only death in the movie for no real reason.
DiD is usually less murdery and more “Ah shit I can’t believe you’ve done this” when your alter eats all your snacks
Omg, I just watched this movie today. Love this review and totally agree, it could have been great.
If Kristin Davis got this role, imagine all the actresses that turned it down.
Ouch!
If they'd just go full out and given Mary AND Grace alternate personalities, then the four of them could seduce Dermot Mulrooney and turn this love triangle into the rare "love pentagon"
I watched it last weekend and I agree with you. I would recommend "Behind her eyes " the show on Netflix now. It's so good, based on a book
Amanda: the memory gaps are never explained
Me: 😕
Still watching the vid, just wanted to congratulate you on almost 200k! You go! You said "imma do this" and you effing did it
you failed to specify that the reason it's so enjoyable is because it's so horribly written and that nothing makes sense ever at all in any way
there's also countless HILARIOUS editing mistakes
When did Hollywood abandon the “evil twin” trope in favour of “evil system”
Bring back evil twin, it’s less harmful :/
Thank you for this review! I was interested for the wlw aspect but I definitely dont want to support something vilifying DID. Also as someone who suffers from memory and time loss similar to Mary it sucks seeing it like this.
I just watched this movie The Rhythm Section that I really wanted to like because I thought Blake Lively was really good in it, but it was honestly poorly edited and poorly structured. It’s on Hulu (I think) and would be curious to hear your thoughts on it. Has some similar problems to this one though.
As a random person who's trying to write a story with accurate portrayals of certain personality disorders, what the hell. These people with millions of dollars can't do even basic research about DID?
"I don't think that's a mixed signal, I think that's a billboard." 😂
whenever you find something particularly rediculous you giggle like that news anchorman reporting in front of a pile of burning drugs ♡ such a wholesome laugh.
❤️ your convoluted summaries of convoluted plots.
Seems interesting. There is a term called unreliable narrator, which is not really implementable into film. Without watching it myself, I can't say if Deadly Illusions is an example to why that is, or a showcase of the possibilities of its implementation.
6:37 I’m so oblivious to that kind of stuff, I still wouldn’t be convinced they were into me 😭
This was a swell review!! It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on "I Care A Lot" (2020) and the movie's failure to create a likeable anti-hero :))
If you thought the blonde lady was meant to be an anti-hero or hero I don't think you understood the movie.
@@avril.m.l that’s exactly what I meant when I said they failed to create an anti-hero, you can see the scriptwriter’s attempts to do that though :’)
What I took from this video: Mary, Margaret, Tom, Grace.
Sounds like a nice movie.