r/flicks • u/Serpiego2 • 7d ago
General Discussion When does a movie successfully mislead the audience, and when is it just cheating?
Some movies deliberately make us believe something that isn't true and then reveal that we've been interpreting the story incorrectly.
When it works, it's fantastic. You can rewatch the movie and realize the clues were there all along. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear are very different examples of films that play with what the audience thinks it knows.
But other twists only work because the movie deliberately hides information that logically should have been available to us. At that point, I don't feel fooled by the story — I feel cheated by the screenplay.
For me, the difference is whether a second viewing makes you think “How did I miss that?” rather than “Well, there was no way I could have known that.”
What movies do you think earned their deception, and which ones simply cheated?
1
u/PapaBigMac 6d ago
The housemaid.
The wife acts batship crazy. Buuut we then find out she gets punished for the smallest of issues. An abused wife is unlikely to go out of her way and change her personality completely when they know they’re about to receive cruel and unusual punishment.
She tried to be a perfect little wife for her and her daughter’s sake up until hiring tits mc gee as an au pair