For the excellent work he has conducted elsewhere, Curtis Hanson’s handling here is disappointingly crude. He and scripter Amanda Silver telegraph all of the suspense well in advance – the stolen cigarette lighter, what Rebecca De Mornay has in mind when she suggests that Matt McCoy and his ex-girlfriend Julianne Moore plan a surprise party, Annabella Sciorra’s tendency to have asthma attacks when she gets stressed out. Everything is so obviously foreshadowed that the film feels like it has been assembled from a computerized constructor-set scenario and untouched by human hand. The one good thing about the film is Rebecca De Mornay whose ice-cold beauty, crystal blue eyes and usual rather emotionally detached acting style is rather well-suited to the role of the cold-blooded psycho avenger.

The film does try to wear its liberal credentials in wielding much of the topical hysteria surrounding sexual molestation and child abuse charges into a thriller. But for all the liberal topicality of it, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle in fact ends up reinforcing a far more conservative position than it gives the appearance of doing at face value. The actual incident of sexual molestation is handled with an interesting ambiguity – from what we see of the expression on gynaecologist John De Lancie’s face, it is never entirely clear whether he is simply giving Annabella Sciorra a clinical examination or is attempting to get his jollies. The clear impression given by the scene is that the issue of sexual harassment could be something that exists entirely in Annabella Sciorra’s imagination. And the rest of the film gives us the sense that Annabella Sciorra is being punished for having overreacted in an ambiguous situation in filing harassment charges against John De Lancie and that if she hadn’t brought the charges her life would not have been turned upside down. Indeed Rebecca De Mornay exists as a deux ex machina without any other motivation to reinforce this point. This is all mirrored in a bizarre ending – during the course of the film, Annabella Sciorra dismisses retarded handyman Ernie Hudson over false sexual harassment accusations as a result of Rebecca De Mornay’s planted evidence. The ending where Sciorra earns her ‘forgiveness’ by this time retracting the false harassment charges against Ernie Hudson and where he earns their ‘liberal’ acceptance and is rewarded by finally being allowed to hold the baby is just bizarrely condescending.

In genre material, Curtis Hanson made his directorial debut with the psycho film Sweet Kill/The Arousers (1973) and also made Bad Influence (1989) with Rob Lowe as James Spader’s psychopathically deranged best friend. He has also written The Dunwich Horror (1969) and White Dog (1982) about a dog trained by white supremacists to kill Blacks.