The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

This thriller is so completely worked out that it might have been devised by paranoids. Not even the most demented Kennedy-assassination buff could be more thorough about making sure that everything fits with everything else. Read full review

De Mornay is oddly compelling as Mott. There’s a gleeful joy in watching her slow, insidious progress, and it’s hard not to secretly root for her character. Read full review

This anti-feminist parable is both a labor and a pain. Read full review

Though Mr. Hanson ("Bad Influence," "The Bedroom Window") is a slick movie maker, he is not an especially persuasive one here. Read full review

Hell of a nice try, but I've seen it all before. Read full review

The male characters are uniformly weak (Solomon is only the least articulate of the lot) and all the women, ultimately, are strong or aggressive. [10 Jan 1992, p.32]

Silver wrote The Hand that Rocks the Cradle as a graduate thesis at the University of Southern California film school, and the movie's derivative nature shows it. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle has the viciousness of The Stepfather. DeMornay's live-in nursemaid recalls Michael Keaton's malicious tenant in Pacific Heights. The entire picture stinks of Fatal Attraction, a movie that begins as an ethical exploration and ends as a mad slasher movie. [10 Jan 1992, p.5]

This is the 10 zillionth film about a friendly-seeming villain invading a contented home, but exploitation of child abuse and baby-stealing make this one a particularly nasty business. Read full review