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What Lies Beneath

2000, Movie, PG-13, 123 mins

What Lies Beneath: Review

WHAT LIES BENEATH
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Though it aims to revitalize the conventions of classic ghost stories, this slow, derivative chiller (which lifts liberally from GHOST STORY, REAR WINDOW and A STIR OF ECHOES) wastes far too much time on red herrings and telegraphs its plot points with painfully obvious dialogue: "Will that [paralyzing drug] work on all mammals?" "You know the cell phone doesn't work until you get to the middle of the bridge." High-strung Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer), who abandoned a promising musical career to marry genetic researcher Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford), is suffering from a bad case of empty nest syndrome. Her only child (Katherine Towne) has left for college, and Norman is too preoccupied with a major project to spend much time at home. Claire begins seeing and hearing things at their lakeside house, muffled whispers and the reflection of a dead woman in the water. She first suspects that their next-door neighbor (James Remar) has murdered his wife (Miranda Otto), but when that proves false she starts looking closer to home for the restless spirit who keeps filling the bathtub and hurling a photograph of Claire and Norman to the floor. Director Robert Zemeckis stages several technically accomplished suspense scenes, but the shocks are predictable; the only thing missing is the cat leaping out of the closet. And while the film tries to walk the line between psychological suspense and flat-out supernatural horror, the plot's mechanics are always visible. Pfeiffer is remarkable as Claire; she seems to have so externalized the notion of "thin-skinned" that her own epidermis has become transparent, and negotiates several tricky character twists apparently without effort. Ford, however, gives another of the joyless, wooden performances that have become his stock in trade, and doesn't even seem to be trying to make the preposterous ending plausible. And as to the PSYCHO-derived score, composer Alan Silvestri should just plain be ashamed. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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