TiVo recorded The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. I wasn’t sure why at first, I didn’t remember setting it to record. Turns out Julianne Moore has a supporting role in it, and as you know I’ve asked our loyal TiVo to record anything with her in it. (That could also explain why several Lifetime movies have shown up recently too.)
I haven’t seen it for years, probably not since around when it came out (1992). It’s not a great movie, a “B” thriller with a lot of slow build up. Most of what makes the movie good is Rebecca De Mornay, as The Creepy Nanny Who Wants Revenge. I think this was the movie that made Tracey not like her. That may be too strong. Tracey just thinks she’s creepy. (It’s certainly a long way from where I, and most red-blooded males who grew up in the ’80s, first remember her from, as Tom Cruise’s “girlfriend” in Risky Business. I have to admit that I was surprised when I saw that again (last year or so) and realized it was her. She’s not creepy at all in Risky Business. No sir.)
Of course Tracey’s right that she has evolved into the epitome of creepy. She’s the Poster-Child of Creepy (well, except that she’s 43). But her creepiness is the only thing that makes this movie interesting. The husband (Matt McCoy) is forgettable as the glassy-eyed clueless husband who has some permanent “look at how neat my beard is, I could be on thirtysomething” thing going on. Annabella Sciorra does a decent job with what she’s given as the wife (“play an addled wife/mother who gets molested by her doctor and then brings charges against him because her husband says it’s the right thing to do and then WHOA! of all the luck, his widow tracks you down and gets hired as your nanny!) Her character in the Sopranos was much better.
IMDB again shows itself to be one of the most interesting websites out there, with lots of interesting tidbits like the fact that the baby in the movie was played by 3 different babies (2 female, one male… we’ll assume they were triplets) and Kevin Spacey was considered for the role of the husband. It would have been a very different movie with him in it, I suspect.
The plot is barely sustainable, and filled with some rather large leaps. For example, Julianne Moore’s character figures it all out because The Countess of Creepiness hung wind chimes at the new house and she had wind chimes at her former house. A-ha! Clearly it must be the same person! After all, how many people hang wind-chimes? The most entertaining part was watching The Mistress of Creep as she found little ways to cause problems in their marriage, pitting one of them against the other, culminating with Claire loudly accusing Michael of sleeping with Marlene (Julianne Moore’s character)… with a room full of guests in the next room waiting to throw her a surprise party, with Marlene (who had planned the party with Michael, at De Mornay’s suggestion) standing in the middle of the room.
In the realm of the “huh” coincidences, throughout the movie we hear snippets of “Poor Wandering One” from Pirates of Penzance.
Oops, Rebecca De Mornay just killed Julianne Moore. Man, she gets creepier by the minute… I do have to give her an “A” for creativity. She rigged the greenhouse so that when the door was opened, the glass from the roof would shatter and fall on whoever opened the door.
Now she’s humming “Poor Wandering One” as she goes about her diabolical creepiness. I didn’t think anyone could make Gilbert & Sullivan sound sinister, but you got to hand it to old Becky, she pulled it off with aplomb.
Creepy aplomb, of course.