Claire Bartel (Annabella Sciorra) is pregnant with her second child, on a visit to an obstetrician Claire is molested by her Doctor. Claire informs her husband Michael (Matt McCoy) of the crime and the couple file a complaint, following this complaint other victims come forward and knowing that his career is over the Doctor shoots himself in the head.
Months later, baby Joe has been born and things couldn't be better for the couple. Michael thinks that Claire needs a break from taking care of the children 24/7 so he encourages her to hire a Nanny. Claire takes this advice on board and hires Peyton Flanders (Rebecca De Mornay) however what Claire doesn't know about her 'perfect' Nanny is that she's actually the dead doctor's widow. Upon her husband killing himself, Peyton lost her baby resulting in her having a hysterectomy. For this she blames Claire and her family and will do anything to get her revenge on them...
This is a film that I had never heard of up until a few nights ago, it's recently been showing on Sky Movies as they often show old classic films and this was a film that they had called a modern classic and a tense thriller. On that simple description I decided to watch this film, I had read in the synopsis about the basic premise of the babysitter taking revenge on the
family that had ruined her life but aside from that I didn't know what to expect from this.
There were numerous scenarios that came to mind prior to watching the film when I thought about why the babysitter wants to take revenge and none of my explanations even came close to the one the film gives us. I think the premise of the film is excellent as it keeps you on the edge of your seat just waiting for the truth to be revealed, unfortunately the audience is kept waiting a lot longer than they should and all that's in store is a very short, sharp and simple climax that was highly predictable but tense all the same.
The film runs for approximately 110 minutes, I feel that this could have and should have been a bit shorter because a lot of the film was quite slow running. This is definitely a slow burner but it's undoubtedly worth it because it's very tense all the way through. Usually when I find a film slow I'll turn it off within 20 minutes however given the premise and the standard of acting in this film I wanted to watch it all the way through and I found myself so entrawled with the plot line that I couldn't take my eyes off it for a second in fear of missing something crucial.
The film isn't as frightening as, say, Fatal Attraction but this one takes on a different premise than that because it brings the children into a lot more which will mess with any parents emotions, in turn dragging them into the movie. It's not exactly an original storyline, it is one that has been done numerous times before in similar shapes and forms and there are arguably better films of this genre out there but this film really captured my attention right from the start by gradually building up tension as it goes along.
The star of the film is undoubtedly Rebecca De Mornay who plays the unhinged babysitter (who looks like a cross between Amanda Holden and Nicole Kidman) intent on exacting her revenge on the family. I like how her character seems completely in control of her actions, she's able to switch between the loving babysitter to the unhinged lunatic with ease and it made this a really exciting film. The fact that her character isn't completely insane is a great touch as well, lots of films like to go the whole 9 yards and make their villain a complete psychopath but the director has taken the clever option here and made his villain a human being with a grudge. This makes the character a lot more unnerving because you never know what they're going to do next, with a deranged lunatic you know that they're not in control of what they're doing therefore could just flare up at any moment, however Peyton keeps her cool at all situations, even when her plan is cottoned onto by the sweet yet dim Solomon (Ernie Hudson).
Solomon was my favourite character out of all the cast, he's been placed in a job as the family gardener by the home that he's in due to his severe learning difficulties. What's great about Solomon is that he brings a different dimension to the film, when he first appears on screen he's wearing a hoody and wandering around the family garden appearing to be a burglar. This immediately makes the audience think that he's another villain and the fact that he's got learning difficulties made me even more suspicious of him because it could easily have been an act. Right from the start the film manages to create a tense, taut and unnerving atmosphere which it maintains throughout.
There are parts of the story that are very contrived, the fact that a stranger could turn up at your doorstep claiming to be a Nanny only to be given the job a couple of hours later with only one reference from a previous family, are parents these days really that careless? No I don't think so, but of course there needed to be a severe lack in judgement here for Payton to get the job, it's just a shame that she didn't get the job using a more cunning method, she could have 'got rid' of one of the other job applicants making her character even more frightening because although she was unnerving she wasn't exactly frightening.
The ending was a bit lacklustre for me, of course you finally see Payton snap and the end scenes are very tense to watch however it doesn't last long enough, in a matter of 10 minutes the whole thing is over and I felt a little disappointed that it didn't go on for longer with much more of a struggle.
Overall I thought that this was a good, but not a great film. It's worth a watch but I think one watch is enough as it's a very slow burner and even the tension created throughout the film isn't enough to make me want to watch this again. I'd recommend this if you haven't seen it before but instead of buying it look out for it on Sky Movies.
The DVD is available from play.com for the very high price of £12.99.
Because this is an old film you shouldn't expect to find any special features on the disc.
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Aug 17th, 2009
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