Emelie (2015) User Reviews (131)

Shows initial promise, but does not deliver the goods

[Seth_Rogue_One · 5/10 · 9 April 2016]

The movie started out promising enough but once the (dodgy) motive was revealed half-way through, the logical loopholes in the plot and weaknesses overall of the script started to show and it just became rather... meh.

And there was very little pay off in the end, it was supposed to be a thrilling ending but it just didn't work at all.

I don't know what more to say really, it's not a whole lot you can say about it as it is such a simple movie and it's impossible to talk about the plot without spoiling it.

But the acting was alright (Sarah Bolger will probably go on to do bigger and better things) and the cinematography was stellar, but yeah overall it just wasn't a great movie.

It had potential but...

[shreeree · 5/10 · 9 March 2016]

I think it was bad writing because this had to be the easiest babysitter to get away from. First what parent in their right mind leave their child with not only a new babysitter recommended by someone but they don't even know what she looks like. The best thing is to have the person recommending the babysitter as back up plan to introduce you so you can get a feel of them first regardless of the recommendation. If not then Google her. So when she shows up they would have known it was not the person they were expecting.

Then they had several opportunities they or at least the two oldest could have escaped. The oldest girl hugs Maggie, their real babysitter when she visits and slip her a note. I felt they could have tried to do more. Then when the oldest brother actually got out of the house instead of going to a neighbor he goes to this dweeb friend whose a kid too who guilt him about leaving his siblings behind, duh, then he should had told his friend he was stupid and useless and went and got a grown up.

Also she cuts the power to a house she never been in and maneuver with a flashlight like she lived there. This girl isn't that much bigger than the kids, I saw a few times the older brother could have pushed down the stairs.

The fact is why didn't she just take the younger boy that she wanted when she first got there and not bother actually playing babysitter. Instead of having her "Partner in crime" watch and hinder the parents. He could have been there picking up her and the boy she wanted. This would have been a better movie if she had said she was going to the store take the youngest, tell the oldest to watch his sister and never took the boy back. Let the movie been about something else.

The last irritation is who gets up and walk from a car rolling over them twice. Meaning first it hit you and roll with the back wheels backing up then the front wheels? No one even if they don't die on the spot but a girl weighing ninety five to a buck five. Makes it to contrive to enjoy the potential it had because the acting was good overall.

Watch it if it's .99 or free otherwise it could have been a Lifetime Movie.

An interesting enough concept that never goes anywhere

[jtindahouse · 5/10 · 20 May 2016]

'Emelie' is one of those films that is a lot more fun if you just turn your brain off and don't think about it too much. Unfortunately for me I don't like to do that. It you stop and think about the whole story for a second you'll quickly realise none of it makes a whole lot of sense. Without spoiling any character's motives, I'll just say that there isn't a lot of common sense or reasoning going on, most of which is lacking in order to stretch this movie out to an already short 80 minute run time. The writing in thrillers is rarely perfect, but there has to be a limit to the amount of absurdity and foolishness you can accept.

It's not all bad though. Sarah Bolger in the lead role did a fantastic job. She had an eerie creepiness about her character, while always keeping some charisma in the mix. The children also did a very good job, giving performances that were above average. Often in these types of movies the kids become annoying very quickly and ruin the experience, but that was never the case here. There was some potential behind all this that I think has been squandered with some sloppy writing in parts. Director Michael Thelin in his first film did a fine job with what he had to work with and can keep his head up. Tweak the script here and there and you'd have yourself a very fine thriller.

Throws Everything Away In Its Final Act To Finish As A Forgettable Thriller

[CinemaClown · 5 July 2016]

Despite packing in an interesting premise & opening on a promising note, Emelie throws everything away in its final minutes to finish as a forgettable horror thriller. The setting is smartly built up, the suspense is effectively sustained for the majority of its runtime but what it lacks & what brings the whole film down eventually is the absence of a proper closure.

The story of Emelie follows the Thompson family that finds the couple going out to celebrate their wedding anniversary, leaving behind their three children in the care of a new babysitter. The kids are instantly enamoured by her as she allows them to do things their parents won't but as night progresses, they soon find out that their caretaker isn't what she claims to be.

Directed by Michael Thelin in what is his directional debut, Emelie takes its time to set up its plot & is often regular with its delivery of brief, unnerving moments from start to finish. It plays on every parent's worst nightmare i.e. leaving one's child in the care of a stranger, and is gripping on more occasions than one. But it could've been so much more if Thelin had figured out a better third act.

Its ominous ambiance is a definite plus as it keeps the tension alive, and the slow relaxed pacing is fitting too as it allows the plot & characters to breathe freely. Another highlight is Sarah Bolger who carries the entire film on her own and delivers a deranged performance. The kids are annoying as expected but a couple of them are nevertheless convincing in their interaction with the babysitter.

On an overall scale, Emelie had all the ingredients to finish as a nail-biting chiller but it tries to get ahead of itself in the final act and pays the price, for that move didn't just work against it but also squandered everything that had transpired before. It really is a shame because there was potential in this material but its decision to cop-out in the end ruins its chances of being counted amongst the better examples of its genre(s).

Great idea, lazy writing **spoilers beneath the jump**

[cgraves04 · 3/10 · 29 August 2018]

Like many others, I was initially drawn in by Emelie's transformation from perfect babysitter to weird creep to total nightmare. I even found her motivation, once it was revealed, to be totally fine and believable. It wasn't a groundbreaking twist, but the concept and eerie beginning alone are enough to make this a unique movie. Sarah Bolger also did a great job as the sinister and deceptive conwoman. However, I just couldn't get past the multiple plotholes, which were made even more egregious by the fact that they were so easily solvable (see below if you want to see my rant about the plotholes). I was annoyed and yelling at my screen by the time the movie ended, and the bizarre, tortured and yet somehow extremely boring climax didn't help.



**spoilers**

1. At no point do any of the kids call the cops, their parents, a family member, a neighbor, or ANYONE to get help. In the beginning, Emelie appears to disconnect the answering machine, but not the phone (which is a plothole on top of a plothole--I thought it was the phone at first, but the mom calls later and at least two of the phones are still connected, so...), but the kids still make no attempt to call anyone. Wtf?

2. The kids have unlimited opportunity to escape and/or to defy Emelie's orders and get help, particularly when their usual babysitter stops by. They never try anything except to make one sad attempt to pass the other babysitter, Maggie, a note. There's no reason why they couldn't have just blurted out "Help!", and Emelie could have dealt with it from there. Their unwillingness to speak up wasn't at all believable. Maybe if Emelie had been holding the gun behind her back to scare them into silence, it would have been, but they definitely had the upper hand in that moment with Maggie standing right at the door. Anyway, even when Jake escapes the house and meets up with his friend, neither boy bothers to find an adult, which defies all sense. Their neighborhhod was FULL of people. I can't for the life of me figure out why the writer didn't just have them live out in the country, and, perhaps, make the other boy's house far enough away that running home and alerting his mom would take long enough to allow for the denouement. Would have been an easy fix.

3. Sadly, in this world, there are way easier ways to steal or even to buy a child. I find it hard to believe Emelie wouldnt't have just stolen or bought a baby instead of putting herself through the trouble of finding out someone's babysitting plans, kidnapping and killing their real replacement, faking her identity, and then terrorizing a bunch of kids just to steal a boy who was already old enough to remember his real parents. I could buy it if I believed that Emelie was sufficiently nuts and obsessed with Christopher, but her weak explanation of her backstory as a bedtime story didn't convince me that she was that insane.

4. Her friend tries to buy her time by crashing his car into the parents' taxi and killing himself. Just... What?! Why?! How does he expect her to escape with Christopher without him and the car to help her? Is he daft? He couldn't have just tapped the damn bumper and then gotten out and made a huge fake fuss? He couldn't have flagged them down and pretended to need a jump? Hell, he even could have tried to pretend to be the taxi! And he had the real replacement babysitter's body in his trunk, which, if anything, would immediately alert the cops that something was amiss at the house and send them straight there, giving Emelie LESS time. It made absolutely no sense.

The other holes I could live with, but these disappointed me because they would have been so simple to address. It was just too much for me. Anyway, that's it. Rant over.

Intense, disturbing and in places infers the obscene, babysitter horror.

[martynmccarthy1965 · 7/10 · 26 March 2019]

Emilie (who is superbly portrayed by Sarah Bolger) is a disturbingly audacious psychotic who deceives her way into the home of a family of 5, as the babysitter, for the parents who are off out for their wedding anniversary celebration dinner.

It appears that Emilie has spent some considerable time planning this deception, along with her co-conspirator boyfriend. We already know they are planning something far more malicious than theft of goods due to the crime committed in first scene, which according to some reviews is not central to the plot. It is very central to the plot, the plot needs careful observation in this movie. We do not see how they planned their crimes, but we do get to see why they planned their crimes in the old stalwart of the movies, the flashbacks.

Evil to the core, the expected mindful guardianship expected by the childrens parents is recklessly abandoned by Emilie and replaced with a calous ambivilence to the childrens morality, enthusiastically enticing the children into doing what their parents would not only not allow, but would be horrified upon discovering what they had been enticed to do.

Enticement soon turns to brazen bullying, which includes both that which is pyshically violenct and that which is mentally and morally obscene.

Jacob (superbly portrayed by Joshua Rush) as the eldest of the siblings at 11 years old, having been unable to contact (A flaw in the plot), or receive help from any adults, is left with the ardous task of getting his siblings and himself safely away from their aggressor.

The plot has perhaps a few too many flaws in it to make for a credible plot, such as the house having a telephone extension (which Emilie appears to have not noticed). Jacob could have called his parents, his neighbour or even 911, having had for much of the time, plenty of opportunities to do so.

It is an intense and disturbing thriller from start to finish, despite it's obvious flaws in the plot. I would have judged a higher score if the said flaws had been better thought out.

Doesn't Really Do Anything Wrong But Fails To Do Anything New

[HorrorOverEverything · 5/10 · 9 March 2016]

By reading the premise for this film I'm sure you know that this isn't going to be some edge of your seat sophisticated thriller, it is a straightforward (mostly predictable horror/thriller that entertains enough but fails to accomplish much).

The flick started interesting enough, had me intrigued right off the bat, however from there it just kind of slows down and starts following the exact same path that many other similar movies have. As the babysitter's intentions become clear the movie got kind of bland, I just didn't really care about most of the stuff that was going on. The film managed to hold my interest enough to stop from turning the movie off but it failed to create any real tension/suspense.

It wasn't all bad, I thought the cast did a really good job, especially the child actors who all gave very realistic performances and succeeded at not really being annoying or obnoxious at all. There were a few memorable scenes as well, one that was really unintentionally funny in my opinion.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie, it did it's job of killing 1 hour & 20 minutes. It's just the whole thing has a very bland and familiar atmosphere that prevents it from being anything more than just another lower budget horror movie.

5/10

Interesting start and boring ending

[allpavel · 6/10 · 29 July 2020]

A well-filmed psychological thriller with horror elements interests the first two-thirds of the timing, and then slides into something standard and seen many, many times. Of the actors, only Sarah Bolger is worth noting. Children play rather themselves and are not particularly remembered. In general, a strong middle peasant. View and put on the shelf.

Better than I thought, but too derivative

[GusToby · 5/10 · 4 March 2016]

I didn't think there was anything more that could be done with the evil babysitter genre and, on reflection, I was probably right. On the other hand there were two or three clever scenes I've not seen before but nothing that had me gripping the edge of my seat. The saddest part of the movie was the sequel-begging ending. I'm sorry, but even though cast and crew gave of their best there is nothing here I want to see again. If, like me, you downloaded this for nothing, you might be entertained late-night after a few drinks but I wouldn't pay to see it and I will certainly not be awaiting the next instalment. Plus points are that the menacing moments were exactly that - menacing rather than explicit - but the whole thing has TV movie/direct-to-DVD written all over it.

Okay

[lukandkilt · 6/10 · 4 August 2018]

Emelie's impact falls short of what was intended for it. While disturbing, it never goes full force and almost borders on tame sometimes. The motivation seemed unnecessary to me and the film lost intensity the longer it went on. Also- I'm being picky at this point!- the transitions really bugged me. But, again, it was okay.

It started well, but fell apart too quickly.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 5/10 · 23 August 2018]

Initially I thought this film was going to be great, it was unusual, and very different. The atypical babysitter under siege horror this was not, so I applaud them for twisting the original format. Unfortunately after a bright start, where you were left wondering what on Earth was going on, it just fell really flat, the plot made virtually no sense, I mean how on Earth did she know she'd end up there? What was the point in the entire charade? It makes no sense. At times I thought the script was a little tasteless to say the least, putting kids through what she did was unnecessary at times, I didn't care much for it.

So it's a real mixed bag, a great idea, but unfortunately the execution was poor, the acting was great and the production values were strong. Sarah Bolger was the best thing about it.

Too many wasted opportunities. 5/10

Expected the usual but surprised.

[gerryexdlr · 8/10 · 21 August 2018]

Sarah(Emelie) a does a great job in the lead and 'Jake' is my hero. I will not doubt an 11 yr old again. Kept me interested and watching intently throughout. Some people want no plot holes, no errors but hey, it's just a movie. Don't look for the flaws and enjoy the popcorn. I recommend this.

It's all Maggie's fault.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 26 July 2018]

If you've seen and enjoyed McG's 2017 film The Babysitter, check out Emelie from two years earlier, a nifty little shocker that also sees a young lad having to do battle with a child minder who is up to no good.

The nutty babysitter in this case is Anna (Sarah Bolger), who starts to act weird as soon as the kids' parents leave the house, searching the rooms, breaking into the family security box, asking eleven year old Jacob (Joshua Rush) to pass her a tampon while she is sat on the loo, and allowing the children to draw on the walls. As the evening draws on, Anna gets progressively loopy, feeding Sally's hamster to Jacob's pet python, playing a most unsuitable video for the children, and reading little Christopher (Thomas Bair) a very strange bedtime story about a young woman whose mind cracks after she accidentally kills her baby. It turns out that Anna is actually called Emelie and that she intends to take Christopher as a replacement for her dead infant.

With competent direction from Michael Thelin, natural performances from the three children and an extremely chilling turn from Bolger as a total whack job, this is, for the most part, a very effective (and sometimes rather disturbing) thriller, which is only let down by a somewhat weak payoff that feels like a set up for a sequel.

Whole movie is pointless and unbelieveable.

[pixykrieg · 2/10 · 9 August 2018]

I made an account just to warn people about how awful this movie was. The entire premise is ridiculous. Why would she sit around doing random things to these random children, instead of drugging them and taking the baby immediately after the parents left? Bam whole movie over in five minutes. You can tell most of the things in this film were only added for shock factor and not to actually contribute to the story in any way. Just awful

Don't waste your time, couple of spoilers but please, avoid wasting 1 second on this garbage.

[speaktomenow · 3/10 · 6 May 2016]

It seems these days all I do is write reviews trashing movies. If a movie is good, then great, no need to come here and try and help my fellow users warning them to avoid it like the plague.

But in the case of the truly terrible movies which somehow have decent enough reviews and ratings to sucker me in, that I then watch and wish I could get the 2 hours of my life back I feel COMPELLED to come here and give them bad reviews in the hope of convincing others NOT to waste their time.

So on to the the movie, with a couple of spoilers (if indeed it is even possible to spoil something with no twists, turns or tension): Good horror needs somewhat realistic situations, with people doing somewhat realistic things, that we would all do (which then fail, or are thwarted by the villain). Think Nightmare on Elm St from the 1980s. OK the whole thing takes place in a dream, with a long dead killer stalling the kids through their nightmares.

This is utterly unbelievable, but the characters try and survive and battle Freddy in a realistic way. And the more he outsmarts them or the worse things get the more the terror mounts.

SPOILER: None of that happens here. Why does this psycho baby sitter go to all this trouble, when she could have just snatched the kid in the first 2 minutes? She's all busy trying to drug the kids, and playing creepy games with them...WHY? There's no logic or tension at all.

She has a male henchman, who is desperate to be part of her plan, and while he's out stalking the parents so they don't come home from their date unexpectedly she phones him and says "I need more time".

For what?? JUST RUN with the kid! What on earth is this plotting? She gets access to the house and then just hangs out rather than just bolting out of there with the kid she wants under her arm.

This idiot then decides that to give her 'more time' he won't drive as fast as possible back to the house so he can grab her and flee with the stolen kid. Oh no, this guy decides he will *ram his car into the parents as they drive home from their date and die in the ensuing crash*.

Huh? Worst plotting ever. There is no logic, no fear, no real edge of your seat nail biting terror. This movie is a long sequence of the supposed really smart killer babysitter making the absolute worst possible decisions about how to steal the child she is obsessed with because (spoiler alert):

She lost her own child previously. Damn, just grab the kid, jump into your weirdo male accomplice's car and get the hell out of there...Which is what I advise you to do rather than watch this trash - get the hell out of there!

SKIP this movie.

It's also a far too big a role for the lead actress Sarah Bolger, who is cute and very girl next door - she reminds you of about a dozen other young actresses in this mold, nothing unique about her and you could have slotted pretty much an other actress into this role.

Sadly she cannot carry a movie, especially not one as poorly written as this. This is made even more noticeable as the three young kids run rings around her for acting and commitment to the role. They are all great.

Script: 2/10

Acting: 4/10

Thrills: 1/10

Desire to smack the scriptwriters right in the face for the absence of fear and tension in a thriller? Oh that's 10/10 for sure.

Not your typical babysitting movie

[elizrug · 6/10 · 19 April 2016]

It was scary from the point-of-view of the parents, thinking about what could be going on at home with your kids when you're out. It raises a lot of questions about how reliable people really are.

Sarah Bolger is good in the role. She made me feel uncomfortable. The kids were amazing. They seemed very natural, as if they weren't acting. Some of the stuff is hard to watch. It's cruel and all I could do was think about how much therapy those kids will need to get over it. The video tape scene made me want to barf.

Some parts are contrived and make absolutely no sense, like the car accident. Why would the boyfriend be willing to kill himself and risk getting caught with a body in the trunk? He could have caused a much less violent accident which would have kept the parents away. That was just stupid.

The ending? What does that mean...that there will be another? I hope not. It's a one-timer.

Terrible

[arabianfreak900 · 2/10 · 30 August 2018]

Honestly it was just disturbing,not scary. The whole bathroom scene and porn scene was disgusting, and beyond where any movie should go because they're children. Poorly done. I couldn't keep watching.

Eerie, Moody Thriller

[Jared_Andrews · 6/10 · 9 September 2018]

Led by the committed performance of Sarah Bolger, 'Emelie' unfolds as a creepy and atmospheric slow burn through the first hour or so, then it shifts into a kinetic, violent thriller. It never quite becomes what I consider to be a horror flick, though certain moments will evoke horror in viewers, as the twisted babysitter torments the three siblings in increasingly unsettling ways.

The music sets the tone early - right from the opening scene. A girl mentions to her friend on the phone that she isn't happy that she's been roped into babysitting tonight, then she's abruptly kidnapped by a passing car. Cut to a dad picking up a different girl and driving her to his house to babysit, and we immediately suspect that this "babysitter" is not who she claims to be. At first, she plays nice with the kids (two boys and a girl), returning to the oldest boy the game that his mom took away and letting them all paint on the wall. But her façade only holds up for so long. After she subjects the children to a particularly scarring video, they become suspicious of her, and I become suspicious of the film's concepts. The babysitter's goals and the film's goals are not in harmony. She wants something and needs to behave normally to get it, but the film wants to scare us, and to do that she must behave abnormally. At some point the film leans too heavily toward the scare efforts, which makes the babysitter's actions and plan far less believable. The first hour or so sets the mood. It's creepy and unnerving in a tame way that's particularly effective, but this approach is then abandoned in favor of one that resembles a more conventional violent thriller. Then we see the classic tropes: Characters make illogical, flat-out-dumb decisions and viewers are ambushed by a few jump scares. The stylistic turn mostly works but is nonetheless disappointing. The early moody creepfest had me so uncomfortable that I had to watch through the partially obstructed view of my fingers. It was cringey to the maximum. Though the second half of the film contained more action, I felt less suspense. The reveal was far less affecting than the eerie unknown.

Perhaps if the filmmakers put a bit more effort into the babysitter's backstory and plan, the entire movie would have held together more effectively. A few alterations could have lifted this from a watchable thriller to a terrific one.

Terrible, do not waste your time on this!

[atkinson-30537 · 3/10 · 21 August 2018]

I felt the need to make an account just to write tgis review about this movie! From the start this movie looked like it had potential but oh my it just got worse as the movie went on. The plot Is bad, the script is terrible and there is very little back story/informing you about the 'baby sitter' I just found the whole thing totally unbelievable. There is no need for her to do all the things she does to the kids before hand and if your only planning on taking one kid that coukd of been done in 5 minutes after the parents left, there was plenty of times for the kids to escape and phone the police for example and for that utter moron who was her side kick in the car 1 why is there a need to follow the parents 2 why not just pull up after they have left and take the kids and 3 why did this idiot feel the need to crash into there car to give her more time and kill himself. So to sum it up it is an utter disgrace of a 'movie'

Interesting psychological thriller, some may be put off with the sexual situations.

[kimheniadis · 7/10 · 30 September 2016]

So many disturbing situations in this film. Whenever you mix kids into a movie, it can either get creepy (Children of the Corn), or you feel really bad for the manipulated children, which was the case for this film.

Sarah Bolger does an excellent job going from nice girl next door to psycho babysitter. And all the kids do a great job too, especially Thomas Bair, who plays the littlest brother, Christopher.

I wouldn't classify this one as horror, but more as a psychological thriller. Although it didn't have a lot of tension, I still was transfixed, waiting to see what fresh hell Emelie would do to the children next. I really enjoyed it, and would have given it five stars, but there were some holes in the plot that were pretty big (especially towards the end), and a couple of things that weren't really explained.

There are scenes that involve sexual situations with the children, that may really be a trigger for some folks. If this is you, you may want to skip this one. But otherwise, I say give this one a watch.

Psycho babysitter from hell

[mido_bob · 5/10 · 10 April 2016]

OK, so she's not actually FROM hell but rest assured this seemingly innocent babysitter certainly puts three, actually innocent kids (and the viewer) through a night of the same in "Emelie".

Spoiler-lite synopsis The film begins with an apparently unrelated abduction and a less than thorough interview, heavy on foreshadowing, before introducing the central protagonists and objects of domestic terror: preteen Jake, Sally who just turned 9 and four year-old Christopher. Enter Anna (brilliantly portrayed by Sarah Bolger the substitute babysitter, seeming too good to be true and reeking of foreboding, who's hastily introduced to the kids before the parents make a hurried exit for a night of anniversary frivolity frivolity in the form of a lengthy supper... a very lengthy supper. OK so they don't actually know the girl but hey, she allegedly has a babysitter- related Facebook page so she must be alright... right? Legit suspense ensues as Anna's time with the kids begins to reveal a personality slightly unhinged putting it mildly provoking a clever variation on a survival horror theme invested with a disturbing realism making it at times difficult to watch and simultaneously riveting.

A horror gem. Very uncontrived. A family's worst nightmare.

[robertemerald · 10/10 · 2 March 2020]

Emelie is a highly believable family nightmare, with the baby-sitter turning on the kids. What makes Emelie a 10 is that the kids are visibly kids, and look their ages of 4, 7 and 9. The very seriousness of how this movie is put together, with great tragic piano soundscape re-enforcing each dire turn for the worst, is another reason it scores a 10. The filmmaker's vision is a serious film about a serious possibility, and it's just so damn harrowing from the opening shock to the pull-your-hair out climax. No teen chutzpah here, just a nightmare, and it is all the more gripping for the magnificent sense of reality, and dread, it so brilliantly portrays.

Disturbing on a few levels

[dar0417 · 6/10 · 19 November 2019]

Disturbing on a few levels but has enough shock factor to make it work checking out.

"Emelie": One Word

[jtncsmistad · 3/10 · 12 January 2019]

Dumb.

Two more.

Don't watch.

Okay, last one, I promise.

EVER.

Has promise, fails in Logic

[doctripsoftheinfinite · 3/10 · 22 May 2020]

I only write reviews if a movie has elements that stand out to me. For this movie, there were so many illogicalities in this movie that I screamed at my screen out of frustration. I'm not gonna waste my time listing them as my fellow reviewers have already done.

Now, granted, the suspense, cinematography, and acting was top-notch, but it was not enough to make up for the lack of logic.

And the ending? There is no way Emelie could have survived being run over by the car twice, and even if she did, she could not possibly run/limp away at that speed, due to major injuries (Crushed spinal cord causing paralysis, etc.). I, as a medical student, know that for a fact.

Even then she could have easily jumped away, since the car wasn't moving fast.

And some scenes, like the hamster and sex tape scenes, in my eyes, served no purpose than for shock value, maybe possibly a twisted lesson in Darwinism and the birds and bees.