I have. I saw it for the third time on Sunday night, but the first in about 20 years.
I don't think I thought all that much of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle when I first saw it sometime in the early 1990s, within a year or two of its 1992 release. I didn't dislike it, but it went in one ear and out the other. These sorts of thrillers were pretty commonplace during that period, and this one did nothing to distinguish itself.
Or so I thought.
The occasion to rewatch Curtis Hanson's film came when I was reviewing for AllMovie, and working from a giant list of movies to review in order to initially build up their review database. If I'm being honest, I'll tell you that I wrote many of these 300-word reviews from my memory of the films. It was the only way to review them quickly, something I needed to do because they paid only $20 a pop, and for a short time around 2001 that was my only source of income. My contacts there surely knew I wasn't rewatching all these films, since I would frequently submit 20 reviews a week or thereabouts, but they didn't bat an eyelash.
But some I did rewatch. Not a lot, but The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was one of them. I'm not sure why in this case I felt it would benefit me to watch it again, but boy am I glad I did.
I emerged from that second viewing with a sense that not only was this not a forgettable, interchangeable domestic invasion thriller, but it was almost a perfect example of the craft of screenwriting.
I know over the years I've tended to credit Hanson with what makes the movie so good -- on its own terms (I'm not comparing it to Citizen Kane) -- but on Sunday night I finally learned the name of the person I should be crediting: Amanda Silver.
The lone credited screenwriter of Cradle worked busily, if someone anonymously, in the 1990s, then disappeared until 2010. Without looking it up, I'm suspecting she stopped to have a family. It was what women still did at that time, even in Hollywood.
She's actually had quite the career the past ten years, now (still) working with her husband, Rick Jaffa. They wrote and produced the new Planet of the Apes series, not to mention writing Jurassic World, In the Heart of the Sea and Mulan. I assume they've already submitted their script for Avatar 3 because I think that movie is mostly in the can. Interestingly, I don't find any of those films a superior example of screenwriting. Amanda Silver could have quit when she was ahead in the 1990s, though I imagine she's a lot richer now.
So just why is The Hand That Rocks the Cradle such a good script?
We all know that everything in a script is supposed to matter, is supposed to contribute to advancing the plot or fleshing out a character. But I'm not sure I've ever seen it done in such a streamlined fashion as in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
There's simply no waste here. None. Every single story fragment that gets even a whiff of a mention has a bearing on the later plot. Interestingly, though, that doesn't mean the movie has no room to feel natural or to breathe -- an interesting choice of words when the film's protagonist, Claire (Annabella Sciorra), is an asthma sufferer.
No this is just a well-oiled machine, proceeding from point to point to point to create a relentless momentum of savvy exposition and rich character development. You might think that "developing" a character means giving him or her a chance to riff, like a Tarantino character would, but you'd be wrong. You can do this while seamlessly interweaving plot material such that not a single word of dialogue could be sacrificed.
But just because everything matters doesn't mean that this is a tight 90 minutes, or that we're feeling rushed toward the conclusion. Cradle runs a full 110 minutes, but it doesn't feel like it, because that momentum is strong. The elements introduced are paid off within moments or at worst minutes, or if they take longer to pay off, you realize just how essential those little droplets of information were for believing the moment when they're finally cashed in. The deus ex machina is the enemy of good screenwriting, and a good screenwriter -- like Silver -- does all the work to prevent that crutch from ever being necessary.
I could cite examples, but I'd be here all day. You can't actually cite examples in a script like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, because you'd literally be citing everything. Each turn of phrase or inserted shot of a seemingly insignificant detail is doing the work of delivering the movie. Any Chekhov's guns here? You better bet they're going to go off by the ending.
I do think, however, that a good exercise in a screenwriting class would be to watch this movie once through, then start it again and pause it frequently to admire Silver's handiwork. If screenwriting classes involve a recitation of do's and don't's, then Cradle is all "do."
And then, 110 minutes later, when the last little bit of story material has been paid off, you know what happens next?
The credits roll.
No checking in on the family six months later. No epilogue of any kind. If you've been paying attention, you know that everything is going to be alright from here on out for this family. (Spoiler alert.) You don't need someone's misguided attempt to tie it all up with a bow.
The movie has been tying itself up with a bow for 110 minutes now, so when it gets to the end, it doesn't have to do anything else.
I call that a great script.
I'll remember the name Amanda Silver now. Heck, maybe she'll even manage to make all 238 minutes of Avatar 3 seem essential.
Probably not, especially given the bloat involved in some of her more recent titles. But I am curious to go back to when she was her peak, if The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is any indication, and watch the two Silver-written films from the 1990s that I haven't seen -- The Relic and Eye for an Eye. I dismissed them at the time because they seemed like generic thrillers.
Be careful what, or who, you dismiss.
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