The hand that rocks the cradle

Year of release : 1992

Run time : 1h50m

Genre : Psychological Thriller / Suspense

Cast : Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, Julianne Moore

Claire is a stay at home mom, who is pregnant with her second child. Unable to see her own doctor anymore, she goes to a new gyno. The man, doctor Mott, takes the robe off her breasts and touches them, then takes his gloves off, and puts his hand inside her, during a routine check-up. Feeling violated, Claire has an asthma attack, and tells her husband what happened when he gets home. He tells her to report him if she considers the man sexually assaulted her. She does, and 4 more women come out saying the same thing. Doctor Mott k1lls himself.

His wife, pregnant, is told they have no money left as her husband's assets have been frozen by the state, and she'll have to leave the house after she gives birth, as they'll give her this time out of respect for her. When she walks out, she collapses on her belly. She is taken to the hospital, and the baby dies as the doctors perform hysterectomy on her,making her unable to ever have children. While recovering, she sees a news story about Claire who was the first to tell on the good doctor.

6 months later, Claire runs after her daughter's school bus to give her the cardigan, and Peyton stops it. Peyton tells her she is a nanny who only worked with one family before, and she heard Claire needs a babysitter.

Claire hires her after they have dinner with her husband, who is a scientist. Claire and her husband have a beautiful relationship.

Peyton moves in, and wakes up at 3 o'clock in the morning to feed the baby. Claire notices the baby doesn't eat anymore, not from her, but the doctor tells her he is gaining weight.

Before Claire met the good doctor who sexually assaulted her, she and her husband hired an intellectual disabled man from the "Better days society" who built them a fence, and because the little girl got attached to him, they keep on finding things around the house for him to do. While painting their windows, Solomon sees Peyton breastfeeding the baby, and Peyton, who never liked him, threatens him.

Peyton doesn't feel safe with him around anymore, afraid he could tell on her, so she plants the little girl's underwear in his belongings, making sure Claire finds them, and the family throws him out.

The little girl who loved Solomon, starts hating her mother for sending him away, and starts confiding in Peyton.

Peyton works on destroying Claire's relationship with her husband too, and at first she ruins the dress Claire wanted to wear at their dinner with their friends, then when Claire offers to help him with taking his proposal to the postal office, Peyton tears it apart.

 

Claire's friend,Marlene, is onto her, from the moment she sees her, and Peyton is working on seeding doubt in Claire, making her think maybe there's something between Marlene and Claire's husband,as they used to date growing up.

Slowly but surely, Claire's life unravels after she takes Peyton in, as the nanny.

The movie's title comes from a 1865 poem by William Russ Wallace, "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world",thing addressed in the movie by Julianne Moore's character.

I personally enjoyed the movie, this was one of the movies I loved, growing up.

I loved the house the lead had, it was so beautiful, inside and out. In fact, the whole neighborhood was beautiful, I would have loved to have lived there.

I also liked the relationship Claire had with her husband.

The acting was top notch, the best were Annabella Sciorra, who's character had asthma, and at times she has to breathe heavy or struggle to breathe, Ernie Hudson, who played a character with slow mental development, and Rebecca de Mornay (who wanted to play Peyton) who goes from being meek,loving and caring to a mean revengeful woman with serious temper or mental problems in a heartbeat.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie was a box office hit, grossing 140 million dollars against a budget of 11.9 million,being one of the highest grossing movies of the year 1992. The movie was the number one rented movie in July 1992 when it was released on home video, and the 7th most rented movie in the US in 1992.

The movie received positive reviews, the critics praising Rebecca De Mornay's performance.

Cinema Score audiences gave the movie an A-, on an A+ to F scale!

The movie was nominated for a few awards, and won half of them.

The movie is labeled horror and mystery, but I didn't see it as such. There's no horror element in it, and there's no mystery as to who is doing it and why!

Rating : Worth a watch !