It's really admirable for Goldie Hawn to have tried something different, and after two decades of romantic comedies, starring in a thriller probably seemed like a great idea. This film is successful as far as her performance is concerned, but she's surrounded by a very messed up script with tons of twists that take forever to lead to any kind of resolution which includes an alleged suicide, identity theft and the murder of several minor characters. Hawn starts off the film as a single woman on a blind date (who allegedly never shows up) and the sudden arrival of John Heard at her place of work to deliver something I turned out to be the man sitting in the restaurant who's watching her all along. They have a happy marriage with daughter Ashley Pheldon, but all of a sudden, she catches him in some lies and he is soon presumed killed in a car accident. When she learns from the Social Security office that the number that he used was not his social security number and that the person whose name who used had died years before, she begins to investigate to find the truth out, getting much more than she bargained for.

Filmed in Toronto to represent a New York City setting, this is interesting and well acted (although Pheldon does begin to grate on the nerves as she did with me as Marah on "Guiding Light" with her helium baby voice and over accentuation on words),and I did remain intrigued even though I was often annoyed with twist that didn't make sense. Kate Reid has a great cameo as Heard's mother, with Beatrice Straight barely more than an extra as Hawn's mother. When Pheldon and her dead father are reunited, she barely registers any emotion. This is the type of film that you can enjoy in spite of all the aggravation that it causes, but Hawn is always fun to watch, and allows a few unintentional comical moments out of frustration with the situation to come out. It's the build-up to the very dramatic conclusion that will keep the audience interested, but I wish they had analyzed the script a little bit more to have made it more clear-cut and less of a mess.

It isn't so bothersome that Goldie Hawn's husband is double-crossing her. It's that he's triple-crossing her.

Hawn and Heard are evidently a happily married couple with two kids. But after all these years, some evidence comes to light that Heard may be lying to her about his activities. Someone claims to have seen Heard in the Chesterfield Hotel in New York, their home city, when in fact Heard was supposed to be attending a business meeting in Boston. A few other hints support the contention that he was lying.

But why? Hawn wonders if he's been having an affair. What wife wouldn't? She snoops through Heard's drawers and the pockets of his older suits, as wives will, and digs up more suspicious evidence.

She begins to back Heard into a corner. He's indignant, unbelieving, but something definitely seems wrong. Then he appears to be atomized in a car accident that ends in one of those fiery explosions that all car accidents end with. Is Heard really dead? I leave the answer to you, the experienced viewer, the informed consumer of these unimaginative mysteries with a threatened woman in the center of it. I myself am one of those consumers and I knew immediately that Heard hadn't died. I was right, as usual.

I kind of enjoyed Heard's sliminess. That charming smile, that oleaginous demeanor. Smooth and comfortable -- even when Hawn discovers that he's not only assumed a dead man's identity, deserted his parents, kidnapped his own child, and committed bigamy -- he's the kind of guy who once had an awkward moment just to see what it felt like.

But this is merely a variation on a familiar theme -- the woman betrayed. Usually the husband is the betrayer, sometimes an old boyfriend. The villain ordinarily beats up the wife, is unfaithful to her, stalks her, makes threatening phone calls and so forth, and the wife has difficulty convincing anyone else that the danger is anywhere but in her own mind.

Given that this is a pretty base formula, I still got a kick out of watching her unravel this complicated mystery of her husband's identity. I prefer them a little more thoughtful, something like "The Day Of The Jackal." Well, that's not about the identity of a husband but of an international assassin, but it's more plausible. When you come right down to it, it's hard to believe that a woman could live for so many years with a fraud and then have the mix-up revealed in a few days.

A handsomely-made thriller saddled with a silly script, cluttered up with incredible situations and plot-holes. Goldie Hawn, toning down her upbeat persona, is curiously thoughtful and tense playing a woman whose husband has just died in a mysterious car accident; little by little she discovers he wasn't who he seemed to be. Nothing exciting or substantial is done with this premise, the child actors in the movie are just awful, and the long finale (a foot chase) doesn't do anybody any favors. The film's classy look dwarfs the marginal plotting (it leads one to expect much more),and the tag at the end--a freeze on Hawn looking wistful--is humorously self-defeating. There's nothing so thoughtful about "Deceived". ** out of ****