Deadly Illusions; March 27 2021

It’s extraordinary – and I mean that in the most disgusted way – how many people assume they know how Dissociative Identity Disorder works without doing more than a Google search.

Last week, I was warned away from the Netflix original ‘Deadly Illusions’ for grotesquely inaccurate depictions of DID, biphobia, and truly pointless cheating in a situation that could have been cleanly solved with a discussion about polyamory.

Also, the scriptwriter clearly didn’t know how publishing works. Of all this movie’s offences, that’s what I saw the most of.

“Red,” said my considerate colleague, “I honestly don’t know what will offend you the most.”

With that in mind, I asked Twitter whether they’d like me to livetweet my reactions, or blog about it. The response, ‘Why not both?’

I did a LOT of tweeting during the movie, and figured I’d have even more to say once I stewed on it, but the movie was actually so boring that I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. When it comes to portraying a sapphic romance, the movie manages to make both women predatory towards each other with a lot of internalized misogyny colouring their actions.

The chief example that comes to mind occurs when Mary, our protagonist, loans a swimsuit to Grace, her new secretly-traumatized nanny. Mary and her Black Best Friend (who is named Elaine but we aren’t told this until the last quarter of the movie) gossip about Grace, commenting that the swimsuit – a perfectly innocuous one-piece – looks like it belongs on a Playboy model. Mary scoffs dismissively and says that Grace is a prude, an assumption that both doesn’t matter and is based on nothing but, presumably, the way Grace dresses.

And speaking of the way Grace dresses, the movie goes out of its way to fetishize Grace. She’s constantly sporting a schoolgirl look and undressing while Mary watches from the window. It’s creepy, and not in the way this ‘thriller’ wants to be.

There’s also the bisexual double-standard – Mary cheating on her husband with Grace is fine, even encouraged by Elaine, but it’s condemnable when it’s Mary’s husband, Tom, and Grace.

There’s more, honestly, but I don’t recall all the details. More would have pinged me as overt biphobia if I hadn’t been searching for tells about the ‘DID twist’ and chalking things up to negative stereotypes about psychosis, instead. Even with me doing that, there was still zero foreshadowing. I wouldn’t have known Mary is supposed to be ‘losing it’ if the movie description didn’t tell us so, and Grace doesn’t give any indication that she dissociates. The timeline to this movie is vague and wonky, but we know at least several weeks pass. Even well-managed DID should have some signs, like apparent forgetfulness, taking longer to do certain tasks, avoiding particular triggers.

Spoiler alert, it’s not well-managed DID. Grace’s alter, Margaret, is murderous with no real incentive to be beyond her own claim of ‘I’m crazy!’, and Margaret and Grace appear to be aware of each other to the point of having conversations while chasing Mary with a knife. They switch back and forth with full awareness.

I’ll give the briefest overview as to why that’s so incorrect. People with DID often have ‘inner worlds’, a sort of space in their brain compartmentalizing identity, reality, etc. It’s possible for alters to ‘interact’ the same way you might have an inner monologue. Just imagine that monologue is filled with interruptions – not by someone you know, not something you’ve heard before, more like an intrusive thought if it seemed to come from outside your head.

All in all, even without the DID elements, it was a disaster of a movie. You can see my thread of livetweets here if you’re interested in my real-time responses.

Incidentally, following my watch of this movie, I went to the hospital! I was admitted for the week, got no answers but some new pain management methods, and now I’m back with my kid who I missed so freakin’ much. I had little to do in the hospital aside from muse on my own story featuring DID, so that’ll be fun!

Incidentally, if you’re writing about Dissociative Identity Disorder, here’s a reminder that I do sensitivity reads! Pretty much no content warning is off-limits, so long as I’m warned about it ahead of time.

Thanks for reading, and remember: don’t watch Deadly Illusions.