The Nanny Knows

Kimberly thinks she's found the perfect part time nanny job for the summer, but on the very first day she accidentally catches the kids' father cheating on their mom, who's out of town on business. This starts a chain of events including stalkers and threatening exes, ending in multiple murders and leaving Kimberly scared for her own life. Can she help the police find the killer before she becomes the next victim?

It's a formula Lifetime thriller which has a nanny involved in murder and intrigue. It's nothing new, but no one watches -I don't -expecting anything original. What I expect is an enjoyable and mildly exciting TV film, and this thriller delivers that. Of course, the killer is obvious but hey it still keeps you watching.

I'm not sure where to start- the amateurish acting, the questionable plot, or the stupid outfits Miss Kimberly wore. Gabe was in full emote mode every time you saw him...overacting at its worst! Britt was equally emotive as was Kimberly at at a number of spots. The only two characters of mild professionalism was the Seinfeld look-alike detective and Laurie Fortier. Ms. Fortier, however, also went into emote mode while brandishing the pistol near the end of the movie.

And the plot was bizarre and really unexplained- rather unexplainable.

A total recasting and some rewrites are the only things that could save this mess.

Everything seemed obvious to me. Spoiler: there was no twist. The movie tried to throw a bunch of different motivations at the characters and even tried with one character that would have been WAY out of left field, but we all know these movies and how they work. A twist is the exception, not the rule.

The actress playing the nanny was so blah and emotionless (until one scene before the climax), and I found the relationship with her classmate to be pointless. They didn't have that much chemistry and it felt like his purpose in the movie was so that she wasn't alone. Which isn't a bad thing, but they just had no chem and it was hard to determine if she was friendzoning him or if she was actually interested. That guy also overacted a lot. A LOT.

The villain's monologue/confession was pretty cheesy and anticlimactic because it was just so matter of fact. Everything the villain does from start to finish made me think who is supposed to be fooled by this? Part of the motivation didn't even make sense because the movie showed none of what the villain was ranting about. Trying to do better about spoilers in my reviews, but it was really kind of eye-roll worthy to listen to.

I watched the whole thing and it wasn't really slow-paced, but it wasn't the best. Felt like a filler movie and/or pages of the script were cut for budget purposes.

I mean it's ok to watch while you're doing chores or need background noise, but don't make this the movie you curl up on the couch looking forward to after a long day. It will disappoint and there are better nanny movies on Lifetime. Not many, but they are there.

I'd say it's in the worst 7 of 2022 so far and that's mostly because they could have tried harder. The best ones of the year at his point are still Deadly Infidelity, Deadly Dance Competition, and Fatal Fandom. Maybe A Gift of Murder.

P. S. One annoying thing I didn't really get about the movie was how the little boy treated the nanny. He seemed kind of spoiled and bratty for no reason. He took to her right away, but then after that one day of her being late, he totally flipped. It seemed odd.

This was a retread of so many past Lifetime movie with a nanny character. This time, though, the nanny was a good person. But I really didn't care what happened in the movie and the plot had a lot of holes in it! An overall disappointment. Skip it!

The acting was so, so terrible. It's like people were plucked off of the streets and put into the movie. It's another one of those LMN movies that you want to watch just to make fun of it, like they do on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Save yourself some time and pass on this one.