"Manny Dearest" (a.k.a., "A Stranger with My Kids") features a smooth-talking male, Alex Smith, who is at heart a predator. He murdered an employer in her bathtub, and now sets his sights on Karen Clark, a widow with two young children.
A problem with the film was just how slow Karen was in catching on to Alex. Even past the midpoint of the film, Karen only has a vague sense of how "invasive" is the behavior of the man who has entered her life to cook her beautiful meals and do her filthy laundry!
One of the more interesting characters in the film is Cori, another single mom who flirts outrageously with Alex. While he does not want to give her the time of day, she keeps showing up at inconvenient moments as Alex is trying to enact his master plan of getting rid of Karen's fiance Greg and becoming the man of the household.
One of the most dastardly scenes was when Alex drugged Greg, then made it appear that the recovering alcoholic had gone off the wagon for a binge drinking session in Karen's home. Again, Karen refuses to listen to her fiance, who had just celebrated three years of sobriety, even when Greg is making the plausible argument that he was drugged.
The mind of Alex Smith is diabolical, as he combines an inherent charm with his pathological fixation on Karen. When Karen conducts an internet search late in the film, she learns that Alex's mother and father perished in the family's garage. Their deaths were ruled a suicide. The time to have conducted that Google search was BEFORE and not AFTER she had hired Manny the Nanny, the Dastardly Doula.
A problem with the film was just how slow Karen was in catching on to Alex. Even past the midpoint of the film, Karen only has a vague sense of how "invasive" is the behavior of the man who has entered her life to cook her beautiful meals and do her filthy laundry!
One of the more interesting characters in the film is Cori, another single mom who flirts outrageously with Alex. While he does not want to give her the time of day, she keeps showing up at inconvenient moments as Alex is trying to enact his master plan of getting rid of Karen's fiance Greg and becoming the man of the household.
One of the most dastardly scenes was when Alex drugged Greg, then made it appear that the recovering alcoholic had gone off the wagon for a binge drinking session in Karen's home. Again, Karen refuses to listen to her fiance, who had just celebrated three years of sobriety, even when Greg is making the plausible argument that he was drugged.
The mind of Alex Smith is diabolical, as he combines an inherent charm with his pathological fixation on Karen. When Karen conducts an internet search late in the film, she learns that Alex's mother and father perished in the family's garage. Their deaths were ruled a suicide. The time to have conducted that Google search was BEFORE and not AFTER she had hired Manny the Nanny, the Dastardly Doula.