What Lies Beneath Review

"What Lies Beneath" reviews

Movie

What Lies Beneath

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-08-10 22:24:28

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

A ghostly homewrecker upsets a perfect couple's domestic bliss. Let the screams begin.

Story

Supermom Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her geneticist husband Norman (Harrison Ford) are adapting to their only daughter's departure to college when Claire begins sensing an unearthly presence in the couple's lakeside Vermont dream home. Is she losing her marbles, or is that the spirit of a beautiful young woman she keeps glimpsing? To say any more (as the too-explicit ad campaign does) would spoil some delicious twists.

Acting

The toplining Ford is his usual solid self in a role that plays cleverly on his familiar persona, but the picture is Pfeiffer's from beginning to end. She delivers one of her most pleasing performances, nicely disarming audience doubts about the story's supernatural elements with some judicious eye-rolling and embarrassed frowning -- her character is so painfully aware that what she's saying sounds crazy, how can we possibly doubt her? Among the low-key supporting cast, Joe Morton ("Terminator 2") stands out as an amiably down-to-earth psychiatrist.

Direction

Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump") takes Clark Gregg's highly derivative haunted house script and pours on the Hitchcockian visual flourishes, unapologetically pilfering from the Master's "Rear Window" and "Psycho," among others. His extended homage results in scene after scene of almost unbearable tension as the audience waits for the next shock. There's some clunky storytelling in the first section, but the all-suspense second half more than makes up for it with some classic work, including what seems destined to go down in movie history as "the bathtub scene."

Bottom Line

Huge stars. Huge scares. The popcorn is optional.

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Starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid, Amber Valetta and James Remar.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Produced by Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke. Screenplay adapted by Clarke Gregg. Released by DreamWorks.

Copyright © CinemaSource 2006.