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.

Let's see: I had great expectations towards this film, since Danika pretty much has the potential to be a fairly enjoyable thriller, but to my disappointment, it turned out to be one of those films that deliberately try to be confusing just for kicks. I don't know about the others, but I'd say I had my share of these kinds of psychological thrillers that usually lead to the same disappointing endings and nonsensical sequences. You know, the typical soft-horror/thriller/drama flick in which the main character keeps having hallucinations and visions about horrible things happening around her and the rest of the characters are dead worried but they still don't do anything to help her out. Even though Ariel Vromen succeeds to create a puzzling atmosphere and there are two or three enjoyable moments, I'd say that these 'twist in the end' fever has been pretty much overdone already. This film pretty much offers a nice variety of pointless hallucination sequences in which Marisa Tomei, giving a flawless performance, always repeats the same situations but in different scenarios. Obviously, it ends up getting tedious after a a while.

'Danika' is the story of a genuinely desperate housewife, whose main fear is to lose one of her children or the three of them, for that matter. This obsession of overprotecting her kids, turns out to be the result of a traumatic childhood experience, in which poor little Danika loses her brother in a road accident. During the course of the film, the mentally unstable woman, appears basically smothering her children and over-worrying about every little thing, making the rest of her family lose their patience. However, it is clear to Danika that something is definitely not okay with her, as she realizes that she's experiencing weird hallucinations that turn her life into hell on earth.

This film offers a few sequences that promise some sort of explanation whatsoever or at least a tiny little connection to the end. Nevertheless, just like many other recent flicks out there with a twist in the end, 'Danika' turned out to be ambiguous for no reason and it tries to deceive the audience and doubt about their own intelligence. My advice is to avoid this film, unless you are bored and you have nothing else to see. I wouldn't label it as 'unwatchable', because that would be unfair, considering that there are a few good things that deserve to be appreciated, but it's mostly Marisa Tomei's performance actually. 'Danika' is not terribly bad, but frankly, I was utterly disappointed when the good atmosphere and the few achievements were suddenly overshadowed by the silly ending. I wouldn't recommend this... sorry.

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.