She was Tricked

Goldie Hawn meets handsome and friendly John Heard, marries him and has a kid with him, and everything seems fine but we know it's not because this 1991 movie is called Deceived. It's a slightly unusual suspense thriller because we, the audience, always know more than the protagonist. However, despite some exceptionally weak logic at times, this movie does generate some good suspense.

I was reminded of Alfred Hitchcock's famous analogy about the bomb ticking under the table while two people at the table chat obliviously. We know that Jack (Heard) has faked his death, we know that Adrienne (Hawn) has the ancient Egyptian necklace he wants. But she doesn't know either of these things. So as we watch her investigate her husband's phony past, we know all the time about the bomb ticking under her table.

There are about a dozen times in the film where any reasonable person in Adrienne's position would have called the police. When she comes home to find her apartment ransacked and her housekeeper strangled, it's implied police were on the scene but we never get a shot of a detective asking her questions. She would have had no reason to conceal any of the things she has uncovered up to that point so the movie breezes past it.

There are a few too many scenes like that and the audience is also asked to believe she would let her daughter's friend take a piece of her jewellery without even looking at what piece of jewellery the daughter's friend was taking. But a more crucial flaw in the film is its lack of a foundation given for the relationship between Adrienne and Jack. The filmmakers would have been better off not jumping five years into their marriage because we have no idea how many warning signs in that period of time Adrienne might have missed.

This loose foundation makes the film feel less psychological and more casual. It would probably be a good date movie, after which a couple could tease each other about being secret killers without feeling too disturbed about it. For a point of comparison, we could look at Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt in which the signs of a long term relationship between Charlie and her uncle are established before she starts to uncover his true nature. The disturbing thing isn't merely that he's a killer but that she felt deeply connected to him. He's not just in her house, he's in her head and her heart. You don't have that in Deceived.

Deceived is fun, though. I liked the finale in which Jack chases Adrienne through a labyrinth of construction work.