Movie Review
Please don’t go into this movie thinking it’s another Mary Poppins sequel! The title of this dark and gritty tale will be familiar to fans of Disney’s beloved family, but nowhere in the film does the nanny sing or fly into the sky with an umbrella. The sitter in this movie is said to get high, but with the help of LSD rather than a magical brolly. So I think there is a bit of a similarity.
But beyond that, you should know that this is for adults only, and only for those who can tolerate multiple scenes of child nudity, and violence.
The feature film debut of music video director Mercedes Bryce Morgan follows Millicent (Morgan Saylor), a young woman who takes a break from her studies to care for a seemingly non-verbal boy named Johnny (Danilo Crovetti). . He quickly ingratiates himself with his parents, Rebecca (Kat Foster) and Jacob (Myko Olivier), who marvel at their new nanny’s ability to bond with their son, and before long he’s a permanent fixture in their home.
It’s not entirely abnormal—many kids love to dress up—but the suit is a protective measure for a boy who’s allergic to nickel, sugar, and many other things. According to his mother, who gives Millicent instructions about her son’s care before starting her new duties, Johnny could die if he comes in contact with anything he’s allergic to, so the pressure is on the nanny to be cautious in the end. wind while tending to it anyway.
The boy is not the only patient. Having spent her young life being abused while in the foster care system, Millicent is mentally unstable. He meets regularly with a therapist to talk about his insecurities and to deal with them, he takes prescribed LSD. Memories of his horrific childhood warped his outlook, and the drugs he became addicted to did little to correct his thinking. Because of his past experiences, he has no tolerance for mothers who neglect their children, and he sees himself as the savior of children who are neglected by their parents because of his mental condition.
Johnny’s parents love him, but both ignore his needs. One moment Rebecca is overprotective, the next distant towards her son, and Jacob feels that he cannot be the person he should be for his son. There is a suggestion that Johnny might not be sick after all and that his allergies are a figment of his mother’s imagination, but we can never be sure. What is clear, however, is that Rebecca is also mentally unbalanced for reasons never revealed in the film. What is also clear is that the young nanny is not ready to put up with this mother and her child being wrapped in protective foam.
It wasn’t long before Millicent started wreaking havoc in the house. She allows herself to be seduced by Jacob, which causes Johnny mental anguish when he sees evidence of their relationship. When Johnny first speaks and calls Millicent “mother”, his real mother is incredibly jealous. This leads to a battle of wills between the two women that begins verbally but later turns into physical violence. Who wins?
A Spoonful of Sugar is slightly reminiscent of other creepy babysitter movies, like 1995’s The Babysitter, starring Emelie and a young Alicia Silverstone in 2015, but it’s more disturbing than any of them. The film contains scenes of dead animals being butchered in front of a child, numerous depraved scenes, a strange hallucinatory sequence that occurs when Millicent (and later Johnny) is high on LSD, and acts of child-instigated violence. These scenes are uncomfortable to watch, and while they may not be overtly expressed, they still push the boundaries of pleasure.
As such, A Spoonful of Sugar can be a frustrating watch at times because we never really get inside the heads of the people we see in the film. That could be a good thing – for the most part, they’re all terrible people – but it would have been a better movie if there were well-rounded characters we could believe. What is worse here is the husband. There’s an interesting moment where we get to see his sensitive side, but for the most part he’s just another tomboy who can’t keep his libido in check.
The story may be disappointing, but the actors are good. As the conflicted Millicent, Homeland actor Morgan Sailor gives a particularly decent performance, deftly capturing the Jekyll and Hyde nature of her character. Danilo Crovetti should be the casting choice for any future Omen remake because of the strong Damian vibes he gives off with his cold and intense performance. Kat Foster, who played Barbara Walters in the TV miniseries Gaslight, is very good as the mother, who slowly unravels over the course of the film. These performances do a lot to enhance the film, which would be less interesting without them.
Overall
A Spoonful of Sugar passes the time, but it’s not that deep and it’s not that memorable. There are some good moments, including a hallucinatory sequence in which Millicent and Johnny bond after taking LSD, but they’re overshadowed by poor character development and plot twists that make little sense. I think horror fans might be satisfied with the gore and grotesques on display, but if they come here for the nail-biting terror scenes, they’ll be disappointed as there’s very little to disturb them here.
Weird fans will love it more than anyone else, but it will take more than a spoonful of sugar to appease those trying to make sense of the film’s plot. Mary Poppins could never solve this family’s problems, but the filmmakers fail to uncover the root cause of all their problems. As an exercise in psychological horror, it almost certainly fails. But if you can appreciate the grim nature of it all, you can get something out of this uneven but sometimes disturbing tale.