Nanny's Nightmare (2017) Reviews

• Flipping the "Perfect Nanny" formula

  mgconlan-12017-06-26

  "The Good Nanny" seemed like a deliberate attempt by writer-director Jake Helgren to reverse the formula originated by Christine Conradt in her first Lifetime script, "The Perfect Nanny" (2000). Whereas that one, the first in Conradt's long line of "Perfect _____" scripts, had given us a basically decent suburban family set upon by a seemingly perfect but actually psycho woman they hire as a nanny, Helgren's script gave us a woman who isn't even a professional nanny — she's an interior designer, Summer Pratt (Lifetime veteran Briana Evigan), who's been hired to decorate the home of Travis and Lily Walsh (Peter Porte and Ellen Hollman) and ends up agreeing to look after their rather squirrelly daughter Sophie (Sophie Gurst). Summer is at liberty to do this because her own fiancé, Hefner (David Tillman), is out of town because he's just been hired to do lobbying for the company Travis and Lily Walsh own — and though they Skype each other regularly she's getting restive as his absence gets longer and longer. Summer's other big problem is that she has a medical condition that makes it difficult to conceive, and since she wants children more than just about anything else in the world that bothers her probably more than it should. When she starts filling in as Travis's and Lily's nanny, Summer has a hard time getting through to Sophie because she literally doesn't speak — our first intimation that she even can speak is when Summer hears Sophie talking to an apparently imaginary friend named "Sasha," and though both the voices are Sophie's they carry out an audible conversation in which Summer can hear both Sophie and "Sasha" exchanging misgivings about how the new nanny doesn't like them any better than the last one did. Helgren shows a certain flair for the Gothic, though his effects with low-keyed lighting, offbeat camera angles and doomy music seem to be playing against his relatively straightforward story and he takes his own sweet time explaining to us just what's wrong with this picture — why Sophie seems so alienated from her parents, why they seem to regard her as a burden and Travis in particular makes it pretty clear he doesn't want her around at all. Eventually, with the help of her friend, African-American pediatrician Dr. Monica Thorne (Tatyana Ali, the only cast member here I can remember seeing, or even hearing of, ouside the corridors of Lifetime) — the usual Lifetime Black person whose plot function is to serve as the voice of reason and try to steer the white characters away from all the stupid things they have to do for this, or any other Lifetime movie, to have a plot at all — Summer finally catches on that "Sasha" and Sophie are actually the same person. Her real name is Sasha Carter and she's the daughter, not of Lily, but of her scapegrace sister Tara (a nicely slatternly bad-girl performance by Kym Jackson), who's been a fugitive from justice ever since she stabbed her abusive husband (the father of Sophie a.k.a. Sasha) to death. There are some neat touches to "The Good Nanny," including one in which Travis is getting out of his swimming pool (and yes, the sight of Peter Porte's great bod clad only in swim trunks is an aesthetic delight!), sees Summer and invites her to join him — "I'm sure Lily has an extra bikini … if you feel you really need one," he says — and later Summer tells Lily about her concerns about Sophie and the way she's growing up, mentions her encounter with Travis as an aside, and all Lily cares about is, "You mean Travis came on to you?" If there's a worthwhile element in "The Good Nanny," it's the fascinating performance of Ellen Hollman as Lily; she begins the story as a virtual Stepford wife, amazingly and almost annoyingly chipper, but as the story progresses and we see how sick all the adults in it are except for Summer and Dr. Thorne, Hollman's acting rises to the challenge of the character and we realize that she and Tara are nowhere nearly as different as we thought when Tara first came onto the action (though by a glitch in the casting Kym Jackson looks more like Briana Evigan than like Ellen Hollman, and so we'd more likely believe that Tara and Summer were sisters than Tara and Lily!). Other than that, though, "The Good Nanny" is a pretty dreary and draining Lifetime non-epic whose attempts to "spin" fresh variations on the basic Lifetime formulae only come off as desperate and draggy.

• **

  edwagreen2017-06-27

  Very disappointing and ridiculously written film. The heroine's name is Summer. For my part, her name should have been fall since the movie is one big flop. The pretentious plot is ridiculous. Even with all her emotional and psychological hang-ups, Sophie or whatever her name was should have been able to communicate regarding what was going on. I will say that the best acting is done by the mother, or should I say the aunt of the girl. She goes from a churlish-like character to one who is emotionally distraught herself. The real mother comes from out of the blue and looks like she could have been in the old television series Hee-Haw. The ending scene out in the fields is totally devastating and not exactly for the squeamish.

• Television movie, and not a good one

  deloudelouvain2018-05-21

  This movie has been made to be a television movie. It just shows in about everything, aspecially the cuttings between the commercials. The acting is not terrible but it's certainly not good either, sometimes it looks very amateuristic. The soundtrack is everything you expect when thinking about a television movie, very dull, it's almost like they did it on purpose to make the little suspense there was to disappear. The editing is also clearly done by amateurs. I gave The Good Nanny or Nanny's Nightmare or whatever title you want to give it a four star rating just because there was some mystery and that's about it. The end is also exactly what you expect with a movie like this one, boring and not well done nor acted.

• Wouldn't have guessed the explanation

  phd_travel2017-07-28

  A young woman who is engaged and recently lost her baby becomes a nanny to a young girl for her fiance's boss and his wife. But things seem a little off with the young girl and her parents. I didn't see the explanation coming which actually made sense and explained what happened before - so it's good at least it wasn't predictable and keeps the viewer wanting to see what happened. Brianna Evigan is the nanny. But the ending is a little dumb.

• good suspense thriller

  thanveeralisayed2018-04-04

  Well i had few guesses while was watching it about what will be it. I am happy that none of them came true. this what happens when you get it from movie that is rated low. yeah 5 is enough for most of the people but i gave 6 cause it just entertained me. my guesses was some times based the movies i have watched already iam glad that it didn't end up in cliché. the movie is dramatic most of the time doesn't have so many thrilling movement or chasing like that.