director
Robert Zemeckis
screenwriter
Clark Gregg
story by
Sarah Kernochan
Clark Gregg
producers
Jack Rapke
Steve Starkey
Robert Zemeckis
cinematographer
Don Burgess
music
Alan Silvestri
editor
Arthur Schmidt
cast
Harrison Ford (Dr. Norman Spencer)
Michelle Pfeiffer (Claire Spencer)
Diana Scarwid (Jody)
Joe Morton (Dr. Drayton)
James Remar (Warren Feur)
Miranda Otto (Mary Feur)
Amber Valletta (Madison Elizabeth Frank)
Katharine Towne (Caitlin Spencer)
Wendy Crewson (Elena)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 130m
u.s.
release: July 21, 2000
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
Official site
other robert
zemeckis films
reviewed on this website:
- cast
away
- contact
- forrest
gump
|
The
ghost haunting What Lies Beneath is not murder most foul,
but the shadow of Hitchcock. I would say the spirit of
Hitchcock, but the spirit of Hitchcock is playfully diabolical;
Brian De Palma gleefully ripped off Hitch, and his glee was truer
to the master than any of the bits of style he swiped. The director
of What Lies Beneath, unfortunately, is Robert Zemeckis,
who may have had the sense of humor beaten out of him after his
much-underrated comedy Death Becomes Her. Zemeckis reproduces
Hitchcock, but at a crawl that makes even the leisurely paced
Hitch seem brisk; it's like watching High Anxiety played
straight and at the wrong speed. If this is the spirit of Hitchcock,
it's a very spiritless spirit.
I always feel the need to say that Zemeckis is still one of the
top directors out there. What Lies Beneath is immaculately
and handsomely assembled, as was his Contact,
and the Oscar-eating Forrest
Gump before that. Perhaps he's simply going through a
similar rut to the one his friend Steven Spielberg went through
pre-Schindler's
List -- giving his all to scripts that don't give much
back. This one, by Clark Gregg, paints by the numbers so ineptly
that the result is a chaotic smear on a canvas. Zemeckis' work
here is like a painstaking photo of that bad painting. If he
wanted to do a suspense thriller, he should've held out for a
better one.
In what seems less like a plausible marriage than a studio decision,
Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer -- he a scientist, she a
former cellist -- go through the motions of love for a few early
scenes. As if anticipating how little chemistry Ford and Pfeiffer
have together, Gregg's script keeps them apart for most of the
film. Alone in their Martha-Stewart-worthy Vermont lakeside home,
Pfeiffer has lots of time to hear strange noises and glimpse
odd sights. A door opens by itself; a tub fills up by itself.
Trouble is, Zemeckis repeats these omens at least three times
each, risking such snarky audience comments as "Yep, there's
the tub again."
Pfeiffer fears that the ghostly manifestations have to do with
a quarreling couple next door; she suspects that the husband
killed his wife and that her ghost is trying to contact Pfeiffer.
Those who've seen the trailer for What Lies Beneath know
differently, but they don't know the whole story. I'll say only
that Harrison Ford, for the most part giving the latest in his
recent string of somnambulistic performances, must have been
sold on the script on the power of its climax, because for most
of the movie he's little more than a high-priced supporting actor.
It's Pfeiffer's movie, and though I dislike how she wins our
sympathy by making us feel protective of her fragile heroine
-- I prefer her stronger and gutsier -- she wins it anyway, creating
a believably haunted woman. Too bad the script isn't worth her
effort.
Almost a year ago, I saw and liked The
Sixth Sense, and grew to love it over repeated viewings;
that was the sort of thriller that gains substance in your memory
and creates the nagging but warm feeling of not only needing
to see it again, but wanting to. It wasn't a supernatural
gimmick or a surprise ending that gave the movie great word of
mouth and attracted viewers back for more; it was its human heart,
the gentle rapport between the boy and his psychiatrist or his
mother. What Lies Beneath has about ten times as many
"Boo!" scenes as The Sixth Sense, but isn't
a tenth as haunting or as touching. It's just gimmick all the
way, and that extends to the ending, which toys with the audience's
star-power expectations in a way that feels thoroughly artificial.
There's a good, nail-biting sequence in a tub (yep, there's the
tub again), but the events leading to it and following it are
borderline laughable, without the heedless joy that distinguished,
say, De Palma's thrillers or Kenneth Branagh's lovably overwrought
Dead Again. Ridiculous thriller moments that don't invite
you to giggle along with the director are in deep trouble. And
I keep flashing back to Zemeckis' drawn-out staging of the "Boo!"
scenes, as if he were determined to prolong the suspense so much
that the audience would squirm out of its seats. Squirm they
will, but maybe for other reasons. |