Danika (2005) User Reviews

Contains major Spoiler for curious people - If I'm right :)

[nilssonpar · 6/10 · 1 August 2008]

Overprotecting mum(3 children) finds husband(tired of her overprotecting side) cheating with their nanny at a motel. She kills her husband and after by accident crashes her car against a school bus, causing the death of all her children. This leads her to a life as bum on the streets and affects her mental condition. With that MENTAL CONDITION we get to see her view of what could have been if she had forgiven her husband and went to work that crucial day instead of the motel.

Good twist, but far too many psychotic sequences leading to a bizarre feeling of what the heck this movie is about. To be honest the movie is quite bad until you understand the twist and u have to endure at least 75 min of a freak show before that.

Good leading performance.

Without managing to understand the movie I'd give it 1/10. With managing to understand the movie 6/10.

Not a popcorn movie......

Janikas journey

[Imiro · 7/10 · 25 December 2006]

Psychological thriller .. well the thrills are a bit artificial and unrelated to the story but there's a bit of suspension still.

Large parts of the movie happen in the main characters mind. The ending is crucial to the integrity of the story. Until you get there you're feeling a bit like "whats the point of this flick?".

I personally thought it was a bit too dragging and slow to rank anywhere higher than 7/10, but a decent psycho-drama still.

Makes you think a bit to understand what its about. Look at the vote statistics, very young people vote low for some weird reason :-)

Gave avg 5 pts for the implementation, but the ending raises it to 7. Of course the fact that you find your self wondering whats going on during the film also is very positive.

The Complexity of the Human Mind in a Challenging Dark Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 11 October 2007]

Danika (Marisa Tomei) is a thirty-five years old overprotective mother with a beautiful family composed by her successful husband Randy (Craig Bierko), two sons - the teenager Kurt (Kyle Gallner) and the little Brian (Ridge Canipe), and one teenager daughter - Lauren (Nicki Prian). Danika is disturbed and near a breakdown, having dark and terrifying nightmares and daydreams; distracted in her work and consequently committing mistakes; and under psychiatric treatment with Dr. Evelyn (Regina Hall). Her problem was originated when her husband cheated her with the nanny of their children, breaking her confidence on him. The lack of attention caused by her disturbed mind leads her family to a tragedy.

"Danika" is an impressive and challenging American dark movie showing the complexity of the human mind. My interpretation of the story is very simple: after finding her beloved husband cheating her with the nanny of their children, Danika becomes an insecure, stressed and overprotective mother, affecting her professional life. While in her treatment with Dr. Evelyn, she revives her innermost hidden fears about the lack of confidence in her husband. This situation is very clear when Randy tells that she cannot forget and forgive him, after the incident with the police. Danika insists on not having a maid to help her, and while having a daydream driving her car with her children, she does not pay attention in the traffic light and is hit by a school bus, killing her children, but surviving. When the reporter asks the paramedic if she would survive, the other man responds "yes", but asks "how could she live?". She asks for her children and her imagination sees her happy family together again. In the last scene, we see the reality, i.e., how she survived, deranged and homeless. I am a fan of Marisa Tomei, and in "Danika" she is simply brilliant. The promising director Ariel Vromen and the writer Joshua Leibner have great beginning of career in the cinema industry. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Danika"

huh?

[CineCritic2517 · 1/10 · 11 July 2007]

There are numerous movies out there that handle psychosis and paranoia and some of them handle it pretty well. Danika most certainly does not.

The only way you could defend the setup of the movie is by saying that we as viewers see the world through the eyes of the disturbed Danika. Well, after 30 minutes of that, it becomes pretty annoying and tedious.

At first I thought the movie was setup to make it hard to follow what was happening. But in the end there was nothing connecting to anything in it. Non of the plot-points that were introduced during the repetitive scenes had any relevance to the eventual end of the movie. And the result is a viewer who is left feeling like a fool.

I believe that it was the directors intend to let the audience be unaware of what was real and what wasn't. But the moments of unclarity were too obvious to achieve that effect.

This movie has not much to show for besides a woman and her delusions. It is devoid of plot, impressive special effects or memorable acting.

Not recommended.

Good but could have been better...

[[e-mail] · 6/10 · 29 December 2006]

I've just seen Danika and came here with the hope that I'd see a detailed explanation of what this movie was all about. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to plots, so I often resort to the internet for enlightenment. This film is good but I guessed the kids where dead pretty early on in this very short movie. I somehow missed the point of the little girl that was abducted? I thought at the time this going to be a central part of the film (perhaps I missed something)? Also the bank robbery scene seemed somehow out of place given how the film progressed from there on. I wasn't bored at any point and everyone involved gave excellent performances. However, I did feel very let down once the so called twist was played. I'd vote this film at 6/10 and recommend a viewing (you might even fill in some gaps for me)

Wonderful build up but falls flat on its face.

[Titans_Wrath · 4/10 · 28 December 2006]

Danika had the potential to be a great movie but it ultimately went no where. There was massive build up and it seemed like there would be a big pay off but then the ending ruined the entire movie.

If you ignore the last 20 minutes or so of the movie, the acting was great, the characters had enough depth to draw you in and you will really want to see how it all plays out. Where are these visions coming from? Is Danika psychic? Is someone hurting her daughter or is her daughter hurting herself? Did her son kill the neighbors dog? Why is there such a tension between Danika and her husband if they had supposedly moved past him cheating on her so many years ago? Its that last 20 minutes that destroys it all. You find out everything you just saw was a lie. The kids died long before they got to that age and it was ALL a hallucination of a crazy bag lady.

I was really excited to see this film but it stumbled and fell at the very end. Bottom line? Don't waste your time.

Danika is a study in the phases of death

[leslie-794-84006 · 7/10 · 18 July 2010]

Danika is a study in the phases of death. Danika could see the dead. In the real world she disintegrated into madness after her husband's affair. She killed him and then killed the kids, intending to also kill herself. However, she survived physically.

Mentally and spiritually, she too was dead. I found it amazing how the directors aged the children and had the family actually go through situations as if they were alive. Totally amazing. That is the part that grips you. She joined her family in death mentally and spiritually but her body was still in the real world. Parallel Universe. Cool. The film reminds me of Silent Hill. Go figure.

Audiovisual hemorrhoids

[alumunum · 1/10 · 9 January 2007]

Bad, acting, irritating neurotic and annoying main character, no redeeming features. This plot has no originality or purpose. It would make absolutely no difference whether the scenes were in any order, it would make the same amount of sense, being none whatsoever. The film is a meaningless void that will hopefully soon be forgotten. I find it had to believe that any positive comment is placed by a legitimate user. The high rating for this movie shows a problem with studios creating accounts to inflate the rating of movies. Even the lead is embarrassed about this string of seemingly random scenes and wanted nothing to do with the finished product. I want my money back.

Not a horror movie

[RandomTard · 6/10 · 31 January 2021]

This is one those movies that are hard to review , except for the fact that this is not a horror movie - at all. I guess I would call it a thriller, but that isn't quite right either. There's not much that can be said about the movie without spoilers so I won't.

It's actually pretty decent movie, well made. But at the same time it's a little boring and unfulfilling. I don't regret watching it, but it didn't leave me with any good feelings.

Disappointing Ending

[bobj_co · 4/10 · 26 December 2006]

We really enjoyed the first part of DANIKA, but it got more and more confusing as it went along. As the drama progressed, we held out hope that the many questions we had would be answered, but that did not happen. After the movie, we went online and searched and only THEN did we feel like we partially understood the movie. There are still lots of loose endings and unresolved questions, but maybe this movie was just too "psychologically thrilling" for us to understand! :)

When all was said and done, it felt like a waste of 80 minutes of our time. If you are someone who enjoys tidy endings to movies, DON'T rent/buy this one.

Here's what you just saw.

[hnhnyc · 8/10 · 13 June 2020]

I saw this movie when I was 17 and had no idea what the ending meant, back then we didn't have IMDB and there weren't really explanations on google.

I went back and watched it today, remembering the ending and certain scenes but not much else and I didn't hold out much hope to get it.

I actually am surprised at how much of an impact it had on me now and how much I thoroughly understand what I saw. If you're confused:

The facts:

Danika did lose her brother as a child. She became an obsessively overprotective mom as a result. We know she has some mental health issues. She hears the bank robbery vaguely in the background on the phone when her boss calls her before she hangs up.

She catches her husband with the nanny, possibly kills him, drives off with her kids and gets in an accident (if it is an accident and not an intentional red-light run, which would explain the bomb on he school bus delusion). She's the only survivor.

Her mental illness takes a turn, and basically, most of the movie is her delusions of what life would have been like if things had gone on-and happily. Except...what if a girl gave her son AIDS, what if she saw the girl who went missing (newspaper headline in her cart at the end) and didn't save her, like she didn't save her brother. Etc.

She had trusted the nanny with her secrets and to take care of her kids, which is why the nanny had the therapist role in her head.

Is it the same thing as "and it was all a dream?" Not really. There are some unexplained parts...her daughter's teacher dying, the dog in the pool (for the millionth time can we please stop with the dogs in horror movies?) the fact that there's no real conflict/fear with the middle child for whatever reason.

The fireman says it. "how do you go on after something like that?"

And bravo for being the exact right length, even under 90 minutes.

I'm not even a mother yet, but I feel like if and when I am, this will resonate even more. For me now, years after seeing it the first time, it's not scary at all unless you stop to consider how vulnerable we are to life throwing us tragedy at any moment and how real mental illness can be.

Good, enjoyable; uneven

[I_Ailurophile · 6/10 · 19 September 2022]

To look at the premise, and definitely to start watching, there are familiar narrative strains in 'Danika'; I think of one title in particular that came out just a few years before this one. That doesn't mean that another rendition can't be worthy - and if nothing else is true, the occurrences the protagonist experiences are distinctly horrifying, and increasingly so. Joshua Leibner's screenplay does a fine job of maintaining a strong air of mystery about the narrative, and conjuring major uncertainty about what is real or not. Just as much to the point, there's unmistakable complexity in the lead role that Marisa Tomei navigates with all the great skill we know she possesses; between the visions and the increasingly erratic behavior, the picture comes off foremost as a thriller, but with a considerable sense too of psychological horror. This may not be wholly perfect, but 'Danika' is duly engaging and compelling, and pretty solid.

All the blood, gore, stunts, and effects that go into realizing the more jarring moments are very well executed, helping the incidents to feel as real as they could be for the audience. It helps that so capable a cast is assembled; led by Tomei, everyone demonstrates fine nuance, range, and personality to bring the story to life. Able direction and sequencing work to amplify all the vitality there is in the screenplay, with varied scene writing focused around the protagonist's seemingly broken sense of reality. All the contributions of those behind the scenes are swell.

All this is well and good. However, there does come a point where the story makes a sea change, and the last stretch of the picture is straightforward drama. It's very well done, and fairly impactful, with heartbreaking but important and commendable themes spotlighted in the last scene especially. Only - these last minutes are a major break from the sensibilities that 'Danika' had been fostering all along, and so it feels like a curveball. The plot is complete and coherent, and ultimately very worthwhile, even as a couple scenes may feel a tad maudlin. Above all, I just wish the writing were slightly more even and consistent one way or another, especially in tone, for that would have made all the difference.

When all is said and done I do quite like this. I think every constituent part stands fairly tall, and it's reasonably engrossing. It just doesn't necessarily stand out compared to other movies of a similar broad thrust Ultimately it's more a drama/thriller with tinges of horror on the edges, and with that in mind - especially for fans of Tomei or others involved, this is a decent way to spend 80 minutes.

Tries to get too clever

[davidklein-06399 · 4/10 · 19 January 2019]

The story is simply confusing with silly jump-scream horror scares thrown in. If the camera would have just let Tomei take her own ride into acting dementia - without the side-shoe tricks of the children, the teacher, the Nannie, the neighbor (and his dog), etc... Could have been a much stronger movie if directed in a David Fincher "Fight Club" type of plot and reveal.

I would forget about the movie in its entirety however - if not for the hallucinogenic scenes that keep you guessing.

Competently made but rather dull and disappointing

[mhiggott · 5/10 · 23 November 2020]

I like Marisa Tomei, and I wanted to like this film, but it didn't work for me. It kept me interested up to a point, but it played out like a dull, overlong episode of Ghost Whisperer, with a terrible ending.

troubled mind

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 1 December 2019]

Danika Merrick (Marisa Tomei) is a troubled suburban mom married to Randy (Craig Bierko). She is hounded by confusing visions and treated by her psychiatrist Dr. Evelyn Harris (Regina Hall). One vision of a bank robbery gets her fired from her bank job. She has hallucinations of a dead girl and haunted by a school bus.

It's a confusing jumble about a troubled mind. It's a jigsaw puzzle that is always expected to come together. For a better result, the movie needs to present a more standard life with bad hallucinations. It can't be that jagged and jumbled. That way, the final reveal of the reversal is more compelling. There is an interesting reveal with Evelyn but the others are not that compelling.

All over the place

[africe · 3/10 · 2 June 2019]

Movie had potential but was too disjointed. Its like following a series that ends up being a dream only it is out of sequence. Writers should increase their dosage and rewrite it. A waste of time in my opinion

Interesting

[laura-mazzoccoli · 7/10 · 8 August 2010]

OK, so I watched this movie once and did not really understand it (I am always great at understanding weird plot lines and symbolism in movies) The second time I watched it, which was tonight, I finally got it! Yes, obviously the entire movie is a fantasy in Danika's mind. She is probably schizophrenic or has multiple personality disorder or maybe she just went crazy and we don't know what is wrong with her, that is why she is manifesting another reality. She has created a whole reality for herself that is obviously not real. At first I was a bit confused as to whether she gets in the crash while her children are younger or older, like in the present, I thought maybe that was another twist they wanted to throw at you. But yea, it is definitely while they are young, after she finds her husband cheating, therefore the whole reality of her and her semi-normal, semi-happy family is pure delusion. It is simply how her mind copes with her illness and the obvious post traumatic stress from killing her children in the crash. This one really threw me at first, but once you understand it, I think it is pretty clever and original. You really feel for her when you see Danika in the last scene sitting on the bench watching the world go by and all the while playing this drama in her head. It makes you think how many people out there probably experience this same exact thing every day. All in all, a pretty decent movie, but definitely not recommended for those who want it simple and laid out. This takes some concentration and after thought. Enjoy :)

Searing Lead Performance, but why in the hell was this movie even made?

[jtncsmistad · 5/10 · 28 February 2019]

Marisa Tomei is remarkable as a woman in helpless free fall with a soul shattered beyond repair. But "Danika" is so stiflingly depressing and gutting, particularly if you are a parent, it makes this well-made film nearly impossible to recommend.

Started off not to bad.. slowly got worse..

[theemaster · 6/10 · 23 December 2006]

Movie has some atmosphere and some elements like those of "Sixth Sense" but ultimately fails to deliver.. something goes wrong in the last part of the execution and the movie loses all coherence and logic..

You could sum it by saying bunch of weird stuff happens and in the last 10 minutes you find out why that weird stuff supposedly happens (that of a fractured mind they hint at.. however given the way the movie played I don't think of it as a fractured mind.. I thought of it as supernatural) Anyway.. I would suggest if you're bored give it a watch.. it's better than some Hollywood productions but this is not shear movie making excellence..

..and then Pam pulled the shower curtain back to reveal it was all a dream

[bluetroyrobot · 3/10 · 20 July 2007]

What a lame ending. I kept watching it to try to figure out just what was going on, and was so disappointed and confused when they revealed the ending. This movie made no sense. The only positive I can say is that I didn't turn it off because I genuinely wanted to find out what the heck was going on. But unfortunately, it just kept spiraling into more and more plot twists until nothing made sense. Is she having premonitions? I don't know. Is she crazy? I don't know. Are her kids in trouble? I don't know. Are we in the present or the past or the future now? I don't know. Is this all just a dream and Suzanne Plechette is lying next to us when we open our eyes? That would have been a better ending, honestly.

Skip this movie. You'll thank me.

A misunderstood movie or "How stupid are you people?"

[furrygothfather · 8/10 · 24 August 2007]

It seems that many people couldn't understand this movie and were unwilling to accept their own limitations and therefore decided the movie was to blame. Reading some of those comments made me in turn annoyed enough to post here for the first time. The short version for those who haven't seen the movie is there is no 'twist' in the now common cinematic style there is only the version inside Danika's head and the revelation of the reality.

For the hard of understanding I'll break this down into simple terms. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN THE MOVIE.

There are basically only 3 scenes in this movie.

1) Danika's fantasy life where she rejects the terrible thing that happened to her and tries to substitute her own reality. It doesn't work for her, she sees glimmers of reality through it (herself as a bag-lady, her "brother" dying from her "Mothers" neglect which is clearly her own guilt and many more). If you are looking for the reality of the movie imagine this is what is going through her head as she sits on the bench at the end of the movie. 2) The event that caused the break down, killing her kids. It is as though she is remembering the truth sitting on that bench but it is too painful for her and she quickly retreats back to the fantasy (her kids come back to life and join her and her husband) 3) The real world present day where she is down and out listening to parts of scene one and scene two replay in her head constantly courtesy of her Schizophrenia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia)

The whole film up into the last scene is there to give you an impression of what being her and being schizophrenic is. She completely believes her version of reality and the only way to share that impression with the viewer is to "lie" that this is the reality of the film right up until the final scene.

So yes this film has no plot, it's a snapshot of an insane mind. Yes Danika's over protective soccer mom persona is fundamentally unlikable but that person never existed, she is a reflection of her very real guilt over causing the death of her children.

The hallucinations within the scene one fantasy are perhaps the weakest part of the film, they are used as tool to keep a viewer interested long enough to see the film through and while the provide clues that nothing else that is happening is real or at least that there is some level of menatl issue. They do perhaps serve to confuse more than illuminate in some situations. They are however representative of the way a schizophrenic's beliefs may vary and may represent her additional fears and paranoia.

In short you are not ever likely to see a film that will give a better impression of what its like to be insane in this fashion (i.e. believing scene 1 is some kind of reality) but if you can't handle a film that does not have a completely sequential plot, or a writer changing the 'rules' of a film to make a point this will be wasted on you.

hmm,,,, not sure how I feel,,,

[reddiemurf81 · 6/10 · 2 June 2020]

Good performance by Tomei,, first of all.

This is the kind of movie where you can't really trust everything that's happening,,, at least not until the end,, then it all makes complete sense!!

Can a mother be too protective of her children?!? Well,, imo yes,,,

Just watch the movie,,,

The Trailer was great but the movies was not!

[atinder · 4/10 · 19 December 2011]

I saw trailer for this movie and looked really great.

The plot: When devoted wife and mother, Danika Merrick, begins experiencing a series of terrifying delusions, she wonders whether she is actually having visions of future events or she is slowly slipping into.

It started of really well as the movie went, all things she knew was going to happen and she dose nothing to stop and this movie also some of kinda of twist,

which I do not understand but I didn't really care if I understood or not, as was really disappointing in this movie

I going to give this movie 4 out of 10 worth watching a least once

A Scary Story Without A Storybook Ending

[[e-mail] · 2/10 · 20 January 2007]

Were it not for the fact that Marisa Tomei is one of most undervalued talents in modern film entertainment, and someone who has consistently delivered heartfelt characterizations in the past, I would have skipped "Danika" entirely. The teaser or blurb on the DVD made it out to seem like there was some kind of a psychic element in the plot, and given that "Medium" on NBC has been such a success, I thought that perhaps this film would be a surprise.

What was surprising was precisely how bad this movie really is.

Frankly, Marisa Tomei is now and has been for a long time, one of the truly luminous beauties in modern films. She's got a subtle way about herself, and a lovely speaking voice. She is expressive but not in a 'femme fatale' kind of way. None of that was put to use in this film from someone's creative Dead Zone.

Speaking of the Stephen King novel ( which we weren't, but hey, we should be ), and the film made from that story featuring Martin Sheen and Christopher Walken, there is ample evidence that this theme of trauma-induced precognition can be made believable, intimate, and effective. That is what made "Dead Zone" a four-star success.

That wasn't done here. There were plenty of "psychic" elements tossed into a mixer and poured out as a script, but that script started SOMEWHERE interesting and ended up going NOWHERE at a glacial pace.

There are three people to blame for this cinematic disaster: the screenwriter who got the credit for this garbled mess of a movie, the director, who was apparently powerless to get script changes, or so totally clueless that he could not see the powerful beginning of a precognition-based plot simply disappearing halfway through it all, and me for wasting my money on this DVD rental.

Additionally, the various and sundry persons who got "credits" for being this film's "producers," should be ashamed of wasting however much money this effort cost. Seldom in the history of modern film production have so many good and talented actors and actresses been paid to do a movie that turned out so very badly.

Regina Hall was good and the film earned a 2 because of that, and because Marisa Tomei made an obvious effort to interact with Hall in several critical scenes, keeping her 'angst' low-key while Hall's character got a chance to shine.

If a meteorite or a comet comes by and burns every copy of "Danika" known, into dust, including the master and the daily rushes ... nobody will complain much, not now and surely not in a hundred years from now. It's that bad. Honest.

Outstanding Performance by Marisa Tomei is Worth the Price of a Ticket

[lavatch · 6/10 · 1 December 2018]

There is a revealing moment in "Danika" where the protagonist is sitting in a psychiatrist's office, and the first point she makes to the doctor is that "I'm going crazy." This film is successful in revealing the darkest caverns of the human mind in the character of Danika.

Stylistically, the film was jumpy and made use of far too many confusing scenes wherein it was difficult to understand if the action was "real" or if it was one of Danika's hallucinations. For example, did the daughter truly read the book that was inappropriate for a sixth grader? Or was the entire sequence about the book a product of Danika's vivid imagination?

Another troubling feature of film was the relationship of Danika with her husband Randy. Throughout the film, Randy cares about Danika to the point of absurdity. At some point, he should have realized that she was endangering the family system and placing the three children at risk with her erratic behavior. Even the early scene where Danika broke a drinking glass in the kitchen should have been enough to alert the husband that an intervention was in order.

Another important scene early in the film was the sequence leading to the firing of Danika by her shrewd supervisor at the bank,, due to incompetence in Danika's work. The same realization should have come to Randy that his wife needed to be institutionalized, if only for the sake of the children.

While "Danika" was overly manipulative in its film technique, it is nonetheless worth seeing for the multi-dimensional performance of Marisa Tomei. It is an unforgettable performance.