THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE is one of the most popular of the psycho thrillers that overloaded cinemas in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the wake of FATAL ATTRACTION. It's up there with the best of its kind, despite a simplistic storyline and some overblown sentimentality at times. The predictability isn't a problem when the story is so much fun.
Rebecca De Mornay is perfectly cast as the ice-cold nanny who integrates herself into an ordinary suburban family to right some old-time wrongs. The rest of the cast are good, even if their characters end up being flat, with the stand-out none other than Ernie Hudson as the handyman whose presence acts as the film's dramatic lynchpin.
Curtis Hanson wrote and directed a lot of interesting thrillers during his career and this is another feather in his cap. The film feels old-fashioned, Hitchcockian in fact, and delightfully cinematic. You can guess what's going to happen from beginning to end, but it's the little touches, the psychological games and twists, that really make it zing.
Rebecca De Mornay is perfectly cast as the ice-cold nanny who integrates herself into an ordinary suburban family to right some old-time wrongs. The rest of the cast are good, even if their characters end up being flat, with the stand-out none other than Ernie Hudson as the handyman whose presence acts as the film's dramatic lynchpin.
Curtis Hanson wrote and directed a lot of interesting thrillers during his career and this is another feather in his cap. The film feels old-fashioned, Hitchcockian in fact, and delightfully cinematic. You can guess what's going to happen from beginning to end, but it's the little touches, the psychological games and twists, that really make it zing.