A Woman of (Four) Letters

Jackie Collins was the Lady Boss of
trash fiction in the 1970s and ’80s.

One of the many depressing aspects about the success of Fifty Shades of Grey was that it highlighted how adult fiction had become so tame by 2011 that E.L. James’ rape-y Twilight fan fic could not only became a pop culture phenomenon but also be discussed by the amnesiac media as if smut had never before dirtied the New York Times Best Seller list.

The NYT Best Sellers had been sullied long before James came along, and on a monthly basis, too. Among those regularly defiling popular literature in the 1970s and ’80s were Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. Though Rosemary Rogers and Judith Krantz gave them a run for their money, Robbins and Collins had succeeded in making their names synonymous with raunch. Rogers and Krantz wrote racy romances; Robbins and Collins wrote trash.

I was more of a fan of Harold Robbins’ books, but Jackie always seemed a far more likable person, and watching the 2021 documentary LADY BOSS: THE JACKIE COLLINS STORY, currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S., confirmed the late author’s likability. She’s so likable, in fact, that no fewer than four women interviewed identify themselves as Jackie’s best friend.

Jackie’s story is told through interviews with her older sister (you know who), her three daughters, Tracy, Tiffany and Rory, and numerous friends and business associates. Director Laura Fairrie’s best source, however, is Jackie herself, not only from archive footage but from a treasure trove of diary entries, journals and an unfinished autobiography, Reform School or Hollywood.

Teen-aged Joan and Jackie Collins.

Jackie failed to make a
splash in the 1957
movie All at Sea.

Of course, much of Jackie’s story has likely already found its way into her novels in one way or another as her life could be the basis of a Jackie Collins book. It’s a life that includes a domineering father (Joe Collins was temperamental theater agent prone to flying into rages at the dinner table), sibling rivalry (Jackie struggled to establish an identity beyond “Joan Collins’ little sister”), an ugly duckling-to-swan transformation (Jackie matured into a shapely young woman, helping things along with a nose job in 1959), wild times in Hollywood (including a fling with Marlon Brando, whom Jackie describes in a diary entry as “kind of fat”), an acting career that goes nowhere (appearing in the Alec Guinness film All at Sea and a guest spot on TV show The Saint are her more notable credits), and an unhappy marriage (Jackie’s first husband Wallace Austin was a bipolar drug addict who committed suicide a year after their divorce in 1964).

Look back in leopard print: Jackie with her first born, Tracy,
and Jackie’s mother, Elsa Collins.

It’s not until Jackie’s second husband, nightclub owner Oscar Lerman, encourages Jackie to finish a novel she’s all but given up on that Jackie pursues writing with any real ambition. “I’d been writing all my life,” Jackie recalls. “I’d written a lot of half-books that I never finished, and he was the first person that said to me, ‘It’s absolutely terrific and you can do it’.”

That book was The World is Full of Married Men, and Jackie sold it to a publisher for £400 ($536 U.S.). To say that the publisher got a huge return on its investment is an understatement. The book’s mix of strong women and sizzling sex made it an instant—and controversial—best seller in 1968.

Jackie at work, exactly as you imagine.

As the documentary details Jackie’s ascension on the best seller lists, it focuses more on Jackie as a celebrity than a writer. Even her former agent Morton Janklow puts more stock in Jackie’s TV appearances than her prose: “It was one of the reasons she was so successful. She could go out there and promote those books and not be embarrassed.” Her Mob Wives aesthetic—big hair, big shoulder pads, lots of leopard print—was just another aspect of her branding. She looked like a character from one of her books, making her their ideal spokesperson. Lady Boss is peppered with clips of Jackie promoting her work, including a 1980s TV ad in which Jackie urges readers to “get Lucky.” (The voice heard at the end of the clip below is Jackie’s oldest daughter, Tracy.)

Two aspects where I feel Lady Boss drops the ball is that it fails to give viewers a sense of the book market of the 1970s and ’80s (timing plays a role in Jackie’s success as much as her storytelling talent) or acknowledge those who came before her. It’s admirable that Jackie was an active participant in the marketing of her books, but she was hardly the first author—or the first Jackie—to do so. That the documentary fails to pick up on the many similarities between Jackie’s and Jacqueline Susann’s lives and careers is Lady Boss’s biggest oversight. 

Jackie looms over Hollywood.

Lady Boss makes it abundantly clear that Jackie took a lot of shit for her books. The documentary tries to attribute this as mere sexism, i.e., people disapproved of a woman writing bluntly described sex scenes (Fairrie includes plenty of footage of Jackie being scolded and/or belittled by male talk show hosts). Lady Boss even tries to frame Jackie as some sort of feminist icon. Though the author did self-identify as a feminist, her brand of feminism didn’t seem to go beyond speaking out against the double standard. Women should be permitted to be as shitty as men, while true, is not the sort of rallying cry that would land her on the cover of Ms. magazine. 

The 1980s, when Jackie ruled trash fiction and Joan ruled
Prime Time.

The documentary also touches on the rivalry between Jackie and her older sister. Joan says that Jackie hated a couple men in her life (she doesn’t name names), and that these men also hated Jackie, and so things were a bit chilly between the sisters during these relationships. Though they teamed up to adapt one of Jackie’s bestsellers, The Stud, into a movie vehicle for Joan in 1978, and its sequel The Bitch in 1979, things were again reportedly tense in the 1980s when Joan, at the peak of her Dynasty career revival, tried her hand at trash fiction, starting with her 1988 debut novel Prime Time. Jackie was none too happy that Joan was trespassing in her territory, so it’s not surprising she felt some schadenfreude when Joan’s subsequent books for Random House were deemed “unpublishable.” 

On the subject of Joan—excuse me, Dame Joan—I did not always believe she was speaking candidly. Though she doesn’t appear to view her and Jackie’s relationship through rose-colored glasses, she’s careful to present herself as the ever-supportive older sister. (People without siblings might believe that, but rest of us aren’t buying it, Joan.) I also got the idea—through tone of voice and body language—that a few people interviewed didn’t have particularly high opinions of Jackie’s famous sibling. When Joan’s anecdote about Jackie’s spirit inhabiting a persistent fruit fly (seriously) is referenced, Jackie’s former assistant all but rolls her eyes and says her former boss's sister is full of shit.

From the Lost Years: A Supplemental Book Review

Jackie’s 2009 novel Poor Little Bitch
Girl. Love the title, hate the book.

Jackie’s life wasn’t as rosy during the 1990s and 2000s. In 1992 her husband Oscar died of prostate cancer. And though it’s only briefly touched on, Jackie was also losing her mojo as an author. Her books in the latter half of her career, while still best sellers, weren’t selling as well as they once had. “We changed as a world,” says Jackie’s publicist Melody Korenbrot, adding that Jackie tried to change with it. “She sat down and wrote, but eventually she became completely confused and lost.”

Judging by her 2009 novel, POOR LITTLE BITCH GIRL, Jackie was still lost in the late 2000s.

I’ve enjoyed a few of Jackie’s books, including The Hollywood Zoo, the 1975 a.k.a. of Sunday Simmons & Charlie Brick (the title later changed again to Sinners) and her 1983 mega-hit Hollywood Wives, perhaps the best thing she’s ever written (but still trash). Unlike grump Harold Robbins, Jackie didn’t take herself too seriously, her writing giving the impression she was chuckling right along with the reader.

Reading Poor Little Bitch Girl, you still get the impression she’s not taking herself too seriously, only this time the tone is less a conspiratorial chuckle and more of a “Whatever,” sighed under her breath.   

Poor Little Bitch Girl is the ninth installment in the Lucky Santangelo series, but the story pretty much stands on its own. Lucky herself is hardly in the thing. Instead, the novel revolves around four separate main characters: Annabelle Maestro, the estranged daughter of movie star parents, now running an escort service in New York with her cokehead boyfriend Frankie; Denver Jones (these names...), a one-time classmate of Annabelle’s, now a lawyer for an elite L.A. firm; Carolyn Henderson, a longtime friend of Denver’s, working in Washington, D.C. as Sen. Stoneman’s assistant (and his mistress); and Lucky’s son Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos, who runs a successful NYC nightclub and who was also once a classmate of Annabelle’s and Denver’s. None of these characters are older than 26, all of them are hot, and they all have the emotional maturity of junior high students.

The murder of Annabelle’s mother, Gemma Summer, is what sets the book’s story in motion, with Denver—whose firm is representing Annabelle’s father, the prime suspect—sent to New York to retrieve the titular poor little bitch girl. Denver hates the assignment, until she runs into Bobby. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Carolyn is kidnapped just days after telling Sen. Stoneman that she’s pregnant with his baby. It’s a good thing Bobby, who is just as smitten with Denver, has a private plane and thinks nothing of using it to fly her to D.C. to look for her missing friend.

If you read the above paragraph and asked yourself, Wait, shouldn’t the driver of the story be Denver trying to solve Gemma Summer’s murder? then you clearly aren’t in the right headspace for a Jackie Collins novel. That murder is merely incidental. What matters is that Denver bangs a hunky journalist in L.A., then a sensitive screenwriter in New York, and then falls for Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos (though she has trouble forgiving him getting a b.j. from pop singer Zeena, a Cher/Madonna hybrid who speaks of herself in the third person). Even Carolyn’s disappearance is secondary to Denver finding a man. Why waste time cutting into the meat of the story when you can eat Reddi-Wip directly from the can?

Worse than the book’s mishandled plot is its one-note characterizations. Annabelle is selfish and bitchy; Frankie is an asshole; Bobby is charming; Denver is headstrong and kind of kooky (and evidently meant to be a Julia Roberts-type character as Denver is compared to Julia in more than once instance); Carolyn is a hopeless romantic. Jackie, preferring to tell rather than show, often assigns labels for her characters, declaring that Denver and Carolyn are independent and smart, yet Denver is always getting rescued by men and Carolyn just wants Sen. Stoneman to leave his wife for her, and the idea that either of these women have more than a high school education strains credulity. You’d have an easier time believing Denver, whose chapters are written in the first person, is a 16-year-old inhabiting the body of her attorney older sister, Freaky Friday-style, than buy her as a member of the bar. 

Why waste time cutting into the meat of the story when you can eat Reddi-Wip directly from the can?

But, hey, at least there’s all that graphic sex Jackie is known for, except, nope, not in Poor Little Bitch Girl. Sex may be at the forefront of every character’s mind—second only to money—but Jackie backs away from detailing any bedroom activity, preferring to just have her characters give generalized postmortems instead (“I liked that he took his time, kissing me everywhere—and I do mean everywhere”). Considering the first Lucky Santangelo novel, 1981’s Chances, includes a scene in which Lucky’s father, Gino, slurps his spooge out of the pussy he’s freshly plowed—and described about as delicately—Poor Little Bitch Girl is practically PG-13. But then, we didn’t have PornHub in 1981, so maybe by the 2000s Jackie figured she’d just let the Internet fuel the horny imaginations of her readers.

In the book’s defense, it does have an awesome title. Also, it’s fairly well-paced and I was invested in the story enough to want to keep reading. Except, by the time I reached the end I regretted wasting my time with it. Jackie never pretended to be a great writer, but she wasn’t even trying here. This wasn’t the work of an author trying to push herself to be better than her last book; this was a brand name trying to fill enough pages to get a new hardcover on shelves before her previous best-seller landed in the remainder bin. It’s not a novel, it’s product.

Admire Her Spirit if Not Her Books

After her husband’s death Jackie eventually took up with businessman Frank Calcagnini for a very long engagement (the pair never married). If Lady Boss interviewees can’t say enough good things about Oscar Lerman, they struggle to say anything nice about Calcagnini. The way Tita Cahn, one of Jackie’s many best friends, describes him, he could well have been the inspiration for the character of Frankie in Poor Little Bitch Girl: “He was a gambler, a drugger [sic], an alcoholic and an abuser.” About the kindest words anyone can muster for Calcagnini is that he could be charming. When Calcagnini died of a brain tumor in 1998 few people—other than Jackie—mourned his passing.

Jackie Collins in a British TV appearance
shortly before her death.

Unlike her late fiancée, Jackie’s passing was deeply felt by all who knew her. Jackie had been diagnosed with breast cancer years before her death, but like her mother before her, she kept her illness a secret, and like her late-husband Oscar, chose to keep working until the very end. Lady Boss includes a clip of Jackie on the British talk show Loose Women made during her final days and her appearance is startling. She looks gaunt, frail, a good ten years older than her older sister. Still, she never lets on that she’s sick. Nine days after this TV appearance, on Sept. 15, 2015, Jackie Collins died. She was 77.

In watching Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story I came to see Jackie as an entertainer, just one who wrote tawdry beach reads instead of performing live at Caesar’s Palace. The documentary also strengthened my appreciation of her as a person. I just wish I could like her books as much as I like her. Still, I’d read Jackie over E.L. James any day.

Hot Mustache-on-Mustache Action

Come for the gay sex, stay for the fucked-
up straight marriage.

To celebrate Pride Month this year, I decided to go back, via Netflix, to the late 19th century, when homosexuals remained in the closet if they knew what was good for them and when men could really rock handlebar mustaches.

The movie in question is the 2020 Mexico-Brazil co-production DANCE OF THE 41 (El baile de los 41), a biopic about Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, a wealthy Mexican businessman and politician in the late 1800s. When we first meet Ignacio (Alfonso Herrera), he’s late for his engagement party, which does not go unnoticed by his future father-in-law, Porfirio Díaz (Fernando Becerril), Mexico’s president. Ignacio’s tardiness doesn’t bother his fiancée, Amada (Mabel Cadena), who’s too in love to believe her rich, handsome future husband has any flaws, or to see that Ignacio is just using her to gain leverage in Mexico’s government. 

Amada’s father has already appointed Ignacio a position on Mexico’s Congress, the President Díaz reminding him that “what is given can be taken away.” But there should be no danger of Ignacio losing favor with his father-in-law as long as he makes Amada happy … and as long as he keeps his love of cock on the downlow. 

It won’t be easy, however. As Dance of the 41 makes clear, Ignacio really loves cock, like, a whole bunch. So much so that he struggles to go through the motions on his wedding night (that he guzzles champagne beforehand doesn’t help matters). 

Ignacio prepares to introduce Amada to the concept of
“champagne dick.”

Ignacio seems to think living in a fully staffed mansion is enough to distract Amada but is horrified to discover that his young bride would also like the occasional orgasm.

Amada barks up the wrong tree.

 

The more things change...: Eva cruises Ignacio.

But the wealthy politician can’t be bothered, not when he’s found himself a hot side piece, Evaristo “Eva” Rivas (Emiliano Zarito, who really had me re-examining my resistance to handlebar mustaches), a young government attorney. The two first cruise each other in the halls of the administrative building, then later are making out in Ignacio’s office. It’s not until Ignacio sponsors Eva’s membership into the 41, a secret society of elite homosexuals (including several members of government). Eva makes the 41 the 42, he and Ignacio begin a full-fledged affair.

Eva presents himself to the members of the 41, a ritual
that’s not too dissimilar to what today’s gay man must do
to gain acceptance at the Miami White Party

Also similar to the Miami White Party, minus the
GHB and molly.

As Ignacio’s and Eva’s affair intensifies, Ignacio’s marriage deteriorates, with Ignacio moving to a separate bedroom and angrily rejecting Amada’s sexual advances. I’ll admit my sympathies were torn. Ignacio, clearly, is in hell, chafing at having to keep up appearances and only able to feel alive when he’s in Eva’s company. At the same time, his privilege as a man allows him stifle Amada’s complaints with impunity. He may be leading a double life, but Amada, so depressed that she’s taken to treating a goat kid as if it were her own baby, isn’t even living one life.

Amada meets her competition.

But Amada isn’t a total doormat. During one of Ignacio’s many absences, she searches his office and finds a love note from Eva. So, like any aggrieved wife, she invites Eva over for a drink. Ignacio is understandably mortified — and incensed at Amada’s snooping. The movie not-so-subtly implies that Amada might be willing to let Ignacio have his fun with Eva, so long as he gives her children. Ignacio attempts to impregnate her, showing all the passion that the phrase “attempts to impregnate” implies.

Yet still more tender than most internet porn.

His seed fails to find purchase, however, and when it comes to getting his wife knocked-up, Ignacio’s attitude is clearly, if at first you don’t succeed… tough shit, ’cause I’m not going anywhere near that pussy again if I can help it.

But Ignacio can’t ignore his father-in-law so easily. Porfirio Díaz makes it clear that he wants grandchildren, then assigns bodyguards to protect (i.e., spy on) Ignacio. It will take more than the president’s espías to keep Ignacio from attending the 42’s drag ball, however. Rocking an emerald gown as he and Eva swing around the dance floor, it’s one of the happiest nights of Ignacio’s life — until the police show up.

Ignacio drags Eva onto the dance floor.

Dysfunctional Marriage Overshadows Gay Love

It doesn’t get better for Ignacio.

I read one review that described the first two-thirds of Dance of the 41 as slow, but I found it thoroughly engrossing. However, I thought Ignacio’s and Amada’s unhappy marriage was more compelling than Ignacio’s and Eva’s romance. Much of this was owed largely to the character Amada, and Mabel Cadena’s portrayal of her. Amada could easily have been relegated to weeping in the background while Ignacio has fun with the boys. Instead, she’s given a greater arc, and the audience is allowed to see her transform from a naïve girl to a steely manipulator (she’s casually brutal in her final scene), and it’s fascinating to behold.

Ignacio and Eva lock handlebars.

This isn’t to say the guys disappoint. Alfonso Herrera and Emiliano Zarito generate a lot of heat together as Ignacio and Eva. However, Monika Revilla’s script doesn’t fully develop them as men. Eva seems almost solely defined as Ignacio’s hot lover; we don’t really get to fully know him beyond his affection for Ignacio. Ignacio is shaded in a bit more, but only lightly. There are only a few superficial nods given to Ignacio’s political career, although that might have as much to do with him not being much of a force in Mexican politics as a storytelling choice. Still, a little more detail about his politics might have given a more complete picture of Ignacio beyond his (alleged) homosexuality. 

Sword fight!

By choosing a subject whose notoriety is based on rumors rather than verifiable fact (not to mention all involved are long dead) Revilla and director David (Las elegidas) Pablos have considerable leeway to embellish Ignacio’s story, yet they make the same mistakes of so many biopics: depicting a series of events in their subjects’ lives without ever really getting to the heart what made them tick. Dance of the 41 tackles the story of Ignacio de la Torre y Mier with a lot of finesse yet it still doesn’t provide much deeper insight beyond “it sure sucks to be gay in late 19th century Mexico” and “don’t assume your wife is stupid, especially if her father is the president of Mexico.” 

At least Pablos doesn’t shy away from imagining the more lurid aspects of the 41, including a fairly explicit orgy sequence. Yet Dance of the 41 never crosses the line into sleazy (not that I’d complain if it did). On the other hand, the movie is so stately that even at its most tragic Dance of the 41 never quite packs the emotional gut-punch expected from it. It’s more akin to a lustier Merchant-Ivory production than Brokeback Mountain.

Dance of the 41 is still very good, it’s just that, despite all the Big Mustache Energy of the two male leads, the movie’s doomed gay romance isn’t as interesting as Ignacio’s unhealthy beard marriage.

Ignacio’s and Eva’s story has its moments, though.

Lifetime: Where Men are Psychos and Women are Schizo

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TL;DR: ‘Deadly Illusions’ Fucking Sucks

A generic poster for a generic title.

In the 2021 Netflix thriller DEADLY ILLUSIONS, the main character, Mary, may or may not be mentally ill, but she is, quite definitively, fucking stupid.

Deadly Illusions is pretty damn dumb itself, which I’d forgive were it not for the fact that the movie expects its audience to be as well. For starters, there’s its tortured set-up. Mary Morrison (least-talked about Sex in the City cast member Kristin Davis) is the author of a lurid mystery series — or rather, she was. When we meet her, she’s settled into the life of a rich, white stay-at-home mom and would like to remain such, which is why she’s incensed when her editor shows up, with his assistant Darlene (Abella Bala, who’s not in this movie nearly enough) in tow, to propose that she write another book. She immediately ushers the editor and his assistant out of her house like they’re reporters at a Trumpist’s town hall. The editor meekly apologizes and assures Mary that those royalty checks will keep coming. Darlene, however, isn’t so meek, at least when her boss is out of earshot.

“Bitch, please.”

“You’re Mary Morrison, best-selling author. Yet there was a time when Mary couldn’t get one publisher to read her work,” Darlene says, barely fighting back a smug smile. “So, she resorted to writing salacious stories and now she gets to sit back and rake in residuals without a single thought to how she got there or who put her there.” 

Mary tells Darlene she should be fired and storms back into her mausoleum-like home. Asking a writer to write — how dare they! (Even before this meeting one senses that Mary is the type of author who puts more effort into her book jacket glamor shot than writing, so this actually tracks.) She’s so pissed that she doesn’t even open the envelope containing her publisher’s written offer. 

It’s Mary’s husband Tom (Dermot Mulroney) who actually looks at the proposal, discovering her publisher is offering to advance her $2 million to crank out another book. “That’s more money up front than all your other books combined,” he points out in a so-why-aren’t-you-writing-you-silly-bitch? tone of voice. But Mary just wants everyone to sit down for dinner.

Later, the couple has some under-the-covers sex, during which Tom deflects Mary’s attempt to blow him, like no man ever. Afterwards, Tom tells Mary about how an investment he made six months ago went tits up, costing them half their life savings, which is why it would be really super helpful if she took that $2 mil advance. Though Mary is upset that Tom risked their money without consulting her, learning that they’re now only half as rich as she thought still is not enough to convince Mary to resume her writing career.

Now, I don’t think people should do things just because they are paid a lot of money, but it’s never made clear why, exactly, Mary’s reacting like her publisher asked her to clean the grease traps at her local Carl’s Jr. “You’ve never seen me when I write. I turn into a different person,” she tells her friend Elaine (Shanola Hampton, whose character outline in the script, I suspect, was simply “Mary’s Black friend”). But ultimately, it’s Elaine who convinces Mary to write the book, suggesting she get a sitter to help with her children while she works on it, and refers her friend to a chichi childcare agency. 

So, that was why Mary didn’t want to write, because she didn’t want anything to take time away from raising her children? I call bullshit. Her two kids — basically props trotted out whenever the movie needs to remind the audience Mary is a mom — are roughly 8 or 9 years old, so they’re away at school for a good chunk of the day. Also, Tom clearly wants Mary to write this fucking book so, presumably, he could shoulder a lot of the childcare duties in the evenings while Mary’s in her office cranking out another one of those salacious stories. They may need a sitter for the occasional date night, but they do not need one to free up Mary’s “busy” schedule. (Of doing what? Going to the gym with Elaine?)

But with no sitter we have no evil nanny movie, I guess, so cue the montage of Mary interviewing potential babysitters, all of whom are rejected for one reason or another (too religious, too germophobic, too self-absorbed). But, just when Mary’s about to give up hope, she interviews Grace (Greer Grammer, Kelsey’s daughter), a sweet young woman who loves to read (they bond over the works of Gene Stratton-Porter and Judy Blume), is excited by the prospect of working for an author, and, most importantly, she’s great with kids, as she demonstrates when she quiets an argument between Mary’s two whining brats. Why, she’s perfect! Too perfect, you might say. And fake as an Ellen DeGeneres apology. But Mary—who, remember, has written a series of mystery novels—fails to see through Grace’s obsequiousness and hires her on the spot. 

She seems stable.

Grace quickly becomes a fixture in the Morrison household, preparing meals and keeping the kids occupied while Mary and Tom go into the pantry to fuck. But while Grace was hired so Mary can concentrate on writing, she’s actually a distraction for the author, their relationship going from employer-employee to BFFs to, maybe, BFFs with benefits. It’s Grace who first takes things in a sexual direction, guiding Mary’s hand to her breast while they’re bra shopping. (Do women really team up in the dressing room to help each other into a Victoria’s Secret demi bra? Seems like a scenario that exists only in porn. And bad Netflix thrillers.) 

When bra shopping goes too far.

Mary’s shocked… and also intrigued. She’s so intrigued that she does some sexual teasing of her own, first by asking Grace to rub sunscreen on her back, then encouraging her cute babysitter to doff that Catholic school girl get-up and go skinny dipping with her.

Grace opts to wear a control-top bikini instead.

These flirtations ultimately cross over fully into Sapphic territory, with Mary getting fingerbanged by Grace while luxuriating in a petal-strewn bathtub. Or was she? Deadly Illusions presents many of Grace’s seductions as possibly only happening in Mary’s head, with Mary beginning to doubt her reality.

Grace gives Mary a helping hand.

Of course, Grace isn’t restricting her flirtations to Mary. After dropping the kids off at school Tom invites the kids’ sitter to a brunch of quiche and Bloody Marys, where he gets around to asking Grace’s age. “How old do you think I am?” she asks coquettishly. Tom says a week ago he’d guess she was 20, but today, 40, which, in reality, would be when Grace would say fuck you and just go back to messing around with Mary as the only time you can get away with guessing a woman’s age as 40 is when the woman in question is obviously in her 60s. Instead, Grace stretches, causing her midriff-baring sweater to ride up, threatening to show Tom one of the sexy bras his wife helped her pick out. 

Actually, this is what I think lunch with Madonna looks like.

Poseur.

After a cutaway to Mary savoring a cigar (just… no), we see Tom and Grace bopping down the highway at night. What were they doing all day? Who picked up the kids? Mary’s not concerned, so I guess we shouldn’t be, either.

So, that’s the first hour, with not much happening beyond a bitchy confrontation with Darlene, the sassy assistant, and a few non-explicit sex scenes. Do things get more thriller-y in the second half? Yeah, but also a lot dumber.

The story jumps ahead three weeks, when Mary and Grace go on a bike ride down to a river, where they have a picnic and start to make out, Mary stopping things before Grace has a chance to burrow under her skirt. When they return to their bikes they discover their tires have been slashed. It’s nighttime when they get home, where they’re greeted by Tom and Elaine, who’s dropped by to share her suspicions — once she and Mary are away from Tom — about Tom is schtupping the help. Mary is indignant and accuses Elaine of having the hots for Tom.

Girl, don’t even.

The next night, Grace gives Mary a taste of the chili she’s preparing, then helps herself to a taste of Mary’s pussy. Things end abruptly when Tom walks into the room, though he’s so clueless I bet Grace could finish the job without him noticing. Mary is suddenly woozy (possibly roofied) and Tom has to help her to bed. Minutes later Mary comes to, hears the unmistakable sounds of people in the throes of passion and gets up to investigate. To her horror she discovers Tom, now blindfolded, going down on Grace in the kitchen (this movie really champions cunnilingus and sex in kitchens). Mary collapses, and as the screen fades to black we hear Grace tell Tom not to worry, his wife won’t remember any of this. 

When pillows attack.

But then, a few minutes later, Grace is once again getting out of bed and joining the family for that chili dinner, saying she had the most disturbing dream. And it does seem like it was a dream. To suggest that it wasn’t is to suggest that the kids were also roofied to allow time for Tom to go clam diving. It doesn’t matter, because Mary goes batshit at the table like this dream (or “dream”?) did happen (“You and my husband were fucking! Over there, on the counter!”) Later, Mary goes on a rant about how she’s been putting all her energy and talent into her family and all she gets is “fucking screwed!” I so wanted Tom to ask Mary by whom does she feel betrayed, him or Grace, but all he does is apologize to Mary like she’s an angry caller on a customer service line.

Mary then finds out that (gasp!) Grace just might not be who she says she is. She investigates further, starting with finding out Grace’s last name. Seriously. Grace has been working for the family for roughly two months and neither Mary nor Tom bothered ask her last name? And how does Mary go about learning this crucial information? Maybe ask Grace directly. Or, how about handing her a W2 to fill out? No, Mary goes to the library to see if the librarian will give it up. “She’s your best friend and you don’t even know her last name?” asks the librarian/audience stand-in, a rare moment of self-awareness on the movie’s part.

Then there’s a murder and all evidence points to Mary as the prime suspect. With only 24 minutes left in the movie, Mary will have to act fast if she’s to clear her name and find the real (or “real”) killer. Good thing for her the cops at the station don’t keep too close an eye on their murder suspects.

Potential as an R-Rated Lifetime Movie Squandered

So much of Deadly Illusions’ story plays out as if writer-director Anna Elizabeth James was selecting tropes like they’re dishes on a buffet line: “Let’s see, I’ll start with The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, with a generous side of Single White Female and just a dallop of Basic Instinct—but hold the cooch flashing, please. Ooooh, and how about a helping of Identity? And let’s ladle on some of that old-fashioned Gaslight gravy.” This wouldn’t be so bad if these tropes were used in an interesting way, but James struggles to use them competently. She frequently loses her place in her own script, introducing some potentially interesting story elements (alluding to Mary’s dark past; rifts in the Morrison marriage) only to forget them a scene later, then summon them in the last act when they’re useful to the plot. 

The people most short-changed by Deadly Illusions, second only to the audience, are the movie’s cast. Kristin Davis seems game for Mary’s many mood swings, but I have to think that even she wondered at some point if her character was A.I.-generated. Greer Grammer fares a little better in that Grace is a bit a more of a fully realized, if poorly written, character. Elaine has little character beyond being The Best Friend, but Shanola Hampton doesn’t let that stop her from injecting a little personality into her role. On the other end of the spectrum, Dermot Mulroney is barely present in the part of The Husband (at one point he clearly calls Grace Chris). Then again, the role gives him little reason to be.

Mulroney does show some skin, so if you like your men to
have some mileage on them, enjoy. Lookin’ good, Dermot!

Only Abella Bala seems to realize this movie’s potential as an R-rated Lifetime movie, making me wish that Deadly Illusions was about an editor’s assistant out to sabotage a best-selling author’s career rather than an evil nanny story. 

James’ previous films have been family friendly, equestrian-focused fare like Destined to Ride. Deadly Illusions is her first produced thriller, and if it’s anything to go by perhaps James should just stick to stories about girls and their horses. The rest of you should just avoid Deadly Illusions, which isn’t even worth a hate watch.