Review of Danika (2006) by Roe P — 02 Feb 2016

You want to know why this movie got only 29% so far? I'll tell you EXACTLY why. The first time I watched this movie, I'd have given it 2 stars. Now, it gets 5 stars. Why? I re-watched it, because the first time around I had NO Idea what was going on.

It was overly confusing. It went over my head. Well, with a little help from a friend who actually understood the movie & explained it to me, watching it the second time was like a psychological mind-blow.

SPOILER: If you've seen this movie and had NO CLUE, don't feel bad- neither did I. What is really happening in this movie is so unique, beautiful, and a tragedy. The entire movie, Danika is actually "dreaming".

Not an actual dream, but her schizophrenic thoughts. Some of the scenes are flashbacks to real events, but even these real events are skewed. In her real life, she got in an auto accident (revealed at the end of the movie) and her 3 kids survive, leaving her as the sole survivor.

She is so distraught by feeling that she failed her children, that she becomes schizophrenic. She also becomes a bum on the streets because that's what schizo often does to people, sadly, and this movie showcases that at the end.

Throughout the movie, you'll see her raising her kids, as if they were actually alive. She is living a delusional life, that her children are alive, but they're not. So, in her delusions, she raises them as very strict, overprotective, so that she can protect them from all harm.

That's from the guilt from the accident. The movie does switch back scenes frequently and does flashbacks and then shows her delusions, so it's hard to keep up with. You really don't know what the movie is about until the end of the movie, and then it all clicks, like WOW, she was schizophrenic, imagining all this.

That makes it really sad, so when you watch it again you can see the tragedy. It went from being a crappy movie to one of my favorite movies, once I learned what it was about. Definitely a movie for the advanced mind, or a psychology student.

The average intelligence person won't get it, especially on the first watch. That is why it ranked low. The author was just too brilliant and it would have been hard to put this movie in "lamen's" watch.