Andrea (Tracy Nelson) attempts to kill herself when she discovers her man (Darren Gray Ward) in bed with another woman. Once she leaves the "nut house" she manages to swing a gig as a nanny for brain surgeon Dr. Robert Lewis (Bruce Boxleitner). Andrea is a hopeful romantic, wanting her life to be like a romance novel. She will stop at nothing (see woman with knife in hand on DVD cover) to get what she wants.

The film looks like it was made for TV. My slim-case version had the opening nudity blurred out as well as deleting the F-bomb, and S-word. It was almost PG. The movie turns into a dark comedy at the end when (PLOT SPOILER) mom becomes an enabler. It made me laugh, although I can't say that was the intent of the scene. The writing is so formulaic, it borders on comedy as we see obstacles getting removed.

I would imagine there are version with the opening sex scene with nudity intact as well as the swearing. The slim case doesn't have it.

Tracy Nelson is so unappealing; she is so ugly it is hard to look at her! She ruins the movie! YUK! How is a doctor gonna go for her? Ludicrous! Don't waste your time!

An essential reference point for "The Perfect Nanny" is the paperback romance novel that is the lifeblood of Nikki Harcourt (a.k.a., Andrea McBride). Like a modern Madame Bovary, Nikki has identified so completely with the romantic heroine Mandy that she has lost touch with reality.

Andrea landed in the Camarillo Psychiatric Hospital after she caught her sleazy husband Troy ("Old Huckleberry") in a tryst. She impulsively stabbed herself and has now been released after undergoing months of treatment. Impersonating a former nanny named Nikki Harcourt, she now takes a job with Dr. James Lewis, a widower. Once settled in the beautiful home with James and his two children, Fawn and Ben, Nikki returns to the fantasy world of her novel and comes to believe that she is destined to become Mrs. James Lewis.

A series of scenes enacted within Nikki's hyperactive imagination, portrays the genteel world of bygone agea when Nikki is courted by the dapper Dr. Lewis. In her twisted mind, she and Dr. Lewis appear in period costumes living out a Scarlett O'Hara-Rhett Butler fantasy world played out in the foreground of a mansion like Tara on the plantation of "Gone With the Wind."

The film unfolds in a by-the-numbers narrative of a psycho on the loose. Five innocent people are victims after standing in the way of Nikki's obsessive path towards love and matrimony. They include Beth, who had won the nanny job at the home of Dr. Lewis; Julia, a doctor and colleague of Dr. Lewis; Dr. Conrad, who stood in the way of Dr. Lewis's support of an HMO plan for the hospital; and Nikki's venal mother, Gladys, a vitamin and herbal salesperson who tried to blackmail her daughter.

Young Fawn Lewis, an English literature student, is the character who early on recognizes Nikki for a charlatan. It is through the diligence of Fawn that truth is finally revealed to the dim-witted doctor father. One final fantasy is played out in the Lewis home between the deluded Nikki and her squire that will finally put an end to Nikki's sick charades and close the book on "The Passion of Mandy."