6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After her disgraced husband dies, an embittered pregnant widow loses her child, and embarks on a mission of vengeance against a woman and her family.
Starring: Rebecca De Mornay, Annabella Sciorra, Julianne Moore, Ernie Hudson, Matt McCoyPsychological thriller | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
All DD=320 kbps
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Before winning an Oscar in 1998 for co-writing L.A. Confidential (and, as some still bemoan, being bested for directing and producing Oscars by that year's Titanic sweep), Curtis Hanson scored at the box office with several skillfully constructed thrillers about families in crisis. The first was 1992's The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, which quickly came to be known as "the nanny from hell movie". Star Rebecca De Mornay did a 180-degree departure from the vamps, girlfriends and wives she'd played to date (most recently in Ron Howard's Backdraft) to transform herself into a domestic psychopath, and the script by Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) was smartly written to give De Mornay's character a credible reason for going over the edge. The result holds up, even though there are moments (a lot of them) where you want to yell at the screen, because the film's characters are so stupidly oblivious to the predatory snake wrapping itself around them and slowly tightening its coils. But those are precisely the fears on which Hanson and Silver were playing. Who can be on alert every minute of every day? When people are at home with family, they drop their guard and relax, and that's when they're vulnerable. The most devastating attacks in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle often occur in the most ordinary moments: dropping off clothes at the dry cleaner, visiting the kitchen at night or driving home from shopping.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was one of several films shot by cinematographer Robert Elswit for director Hanson, but as Elswit said when he accepted the Oscar for P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood, much of what he does is determined by the production design. The Bartel household where much of the film takes place features a neutral-toned decor that becomes a place of perpetual blandness under the perpetually overcast Seattle sky. It's not black-and-white so much as tone-on-tone, which must have made the scenes challenging to light. The image on Disney's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has, for the most part, a pleasingly film-like quality with natural grain patterns, appropriate black levels, good but not overstated contrast and colors that are dialed down without becoming too pale. Detail is excellent throughout. Here and there, very lightly, a touch of digital sharpening can be detected, but one must be looking for it. It's certainly not enough to create obvious edge halos or other pronounced artifacts. Compression errors, banding and similar artifacts were not an issue.
The film's original stereo soundtrack has been remixed for 5.1 and released on Blu-ray in DTS-HD MA 5.1. The mix is front-centered and has almost nothing in the way of surround activity except for an increased sense of presence and depth. Dialogue is clear, and the effective score by Graeme Revell has a full dynamic range.
The only extra is the film's theatrical trailer (SD; 1:33; 1:52). At startup the disc plays trailers for Frankenweenie and Who Framed Roger Rabbit on Blu-ray, plus an anti-smoking PSA. These are available from the main menu as "Sneak Peeks", along with trailers for The Avengers, ABC TV on Blu-ray, Castle: Season 4 and ABC TV on DVD.
As I said in a recent review of Arachnophobia (which we have since withdrawn after Disney pulled back all its product and set a new release date to address various issues), the company's erratic output makes each Blu-ray an adventure. It is therefore a pleasant surprise to discover that a catalog title like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle has been given a fairly respectable treatment, and it's equally pleasant to report that Disney has released a barebones disc without trying to dress it up with an empty label like "Twentieth Anniversary Release" (which, in fact, this is). What Blu-ray consumers really want is an accurate transfer, compression without artifacts and the original soundtrack in lossless format. The rest is gravy. Recommended.
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