YAKMALA!

Is The Hand that Rocks the Cradle really that bad? If you remember it at all, you probably have fuzzy memories of a serviceable thriller starring that chick from Risky Business. Upon review, it’s clear that much of the movie’s greatness is entirely unintentional, which marks it as a true Yakmala film.

Tagline: [The Hand that Rocks the Cradle]…is the hand that rules the world

More Accurate Tagline: …is the hand that punches Rebecca De Mornay in the face

Guilty Party: Writer Amanda Silver. Mr. E puts director Curtis Hanson at fault, but the genesis for what goes horribly awry is right there in the script. Meanwhile, Hanson has directed one great film (L.A. Confidential) and one watchable-at-the-time-but-now-kind-of-embarrassing film (8 Mile), so I’m going to blame Silver. Her other major movies were Eye for an Eye and The Relic so we’re not exactly dealing with someone who layers on the nuance.

Synopsis: Claire Bartel (Annabella Sciorra, who apparently has always looked that old), six months pregnant with her second child, is married to Michael (Matt McCoy, always a mark of quality), a nice man with a beard, with whom she has a little daughter named Emma. She goes to a new gynecologist, Q (seriously, John de Lancie plays the pervert), and he molests her. She sues him and he kills himself. His wife Peyton (Rebecca De Mornay), also pregnant, miscarries when she finds out that the suicide has voided Q’s insurance. So much for the Q Continuum’s universal coverage. She decides to get revenge on Claire and six months after the suicide insinuates herself into the house as a nanny, attempting to turn everyone against poor Claire. From breastfeeding the baby so it no longer accepts his own mother’s breast, to framing Solomon (Ernie Hudson), the magical fence-building simpleton, for child molestation, to attempting to seduce Michael, there’s nothing Peyton won’t do. Through the whole film, Peyton is cold, subtle and calculating, and it’s working. Then, Claire figures out the score and pops Peyton in the face, making Peyton go cuckoo bananas. Like the bad guy in every early ‘90s normal-person-goes-wacko movie, bitch seriously flips her lid. In the end Claire has to shank Peyton with a kitchen knife and drop her on a white picket fence. The symbolism is not subtle.

Life-Changing Subtext: Everyone, even three month old babies, is horrible. About halfway through the movie I made a realization. “Hey. This movie hates people!” I exclaimed. This movie got slammed for being misogynist, but that’s not true: it hates everyone equally. Everyone in the film is either stupid (Claire, Michael, and of course Solomon), evil (Peyton, Q), or treacherous (the freakin’ baby). This movie makes a baby unsympathetic. I didn’t even think that was possible. The only sympathetic character is little Emma, and you know with those dumbass parents, she’s going to be screwed up.

Defining Quote: “She can’t get in. I have her keys.” Michael, to Claire, unveiling his master plan for home safety while standing in front of a giant glass window. Roughly five minutes later, Michael was lying in the basement with a couple broken legs. So you can see how that turned out.

Standout Performance: Rebecca De Mornay. Unique among Yakmala movies, De Mornay is actually unironically good for the bulk of the movie. It isn’t until Sciorra punches her in the face that the character loses all coherency. She transforms from Machiavelli to Michael Myers minus the Shatner mask.

What’s Wrong: Other than the “babies are heartless opportunists” subtext, the entire plot of the film hinges on Michael being a complete and utter moron. Peyton is about as subtle as a brick to the head in her attempt to get Michael in the sack (at one point she goes after him in a soaking wet white nightgown), and he thinks she’s just being friendly. All the bad stuff going on is all a coincidence, and the best solution is to ignore his wife to play a boardgame with Emma and the nanny. The only possible explanation is that Michael has Asperger’s or maybe severe brain damage, but that’s never addressed in the script. It is amazing how much would be solved by including head trauma in that character’s backstory.

Flash of Competence: Slick production values, an entertaining lead performance and small part for Julianne Moore who, for once, actually manages to keep her clothes on. I know! I was as shocked as you.

Best Jokes: My favorite joke was in the very end. Basically, Peyton throws Michael down the basement stairs and he breaks both legs, leaving Claire to fight Peyton and Michael to wonder how Peyton got in without her keys. The climax takes place in the attic, and after Claire dumps Peyton out the window, Claire, Emma, the baby and Solomon have their little moment and slowly stroll out of the attic. Meanwhile, Michael is still lying in agony with two broken legs in the basement, apparently forgotten. There’s no “let’s call an ambulance for daddy,” or, “let’s check on Michael, he looked pretty bad when last I saw him,” or even, “hey, I wonder what Michael’s been up to?” Nope. The credits start to roll. As one, the entire gang started up: “Claire? [pause] Solomon? [pause] Emma? [long pause] Baby? [longer pause] Peyton?”

Best Scenes: Anything with Q was comedy gold. Just because the poor guy is always going to be Q, and playing creepy gynecologists is just plain funny if you pretend they’re only doing it to bug Picard.

Transcendent Moment: Claire holds the baby and he starts to cry. Peyton takes him and he calms down immediately. Stupid baby.

It’s not that The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is a horrible movie. It only becomes truly repellent in further analysis, but you have to respect the audacity of any film that casts a three month old baby as a villain. I’m hoping this leads to a trend of moustache-twirling babies obsessed with tying Elmo to some traintracks. Yeah, tickle that, bitch.

You see what this movie does to you?