Retro Raunch Revisit

WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Remar, Miranda Otto, Amber Valleta, Joe Morton, Wendy Crewson
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Released July 21, 2000 (Happy 25th Anniversary)
Dr. Norman Spencer is a university genetic research scientist married to Claire, a retired concert pianist who was in a serious, near-fatal car crash the previous year. Their daughter (Norman's stepdaughter) has just left home for college. Claire is bored & lonely and has taken to spying on the neighbors next door, the Feurs. With binoculars in hand, she is fascinated with the movements of the couple, and then convinces herself that the aloof Warren Feur is an abuser who has murdered his wife, Mary, when she seemingly vanishes without a trace. Sensing their own under-renovation Vermont home is inhabited by a forceful presence, Claire begins hearing voices and experiencing eerie incidents involving doors, mirrors, picture frames, their startled dog barking at the unseen -- and particularly unsettling -- seeing the face of a similar-looking young woman reflected in water (first in the nearby lake and later in the bathtub). Are the unexplainable voices & visions real, or is it all a projection of her subconscious, stirred up by a snooping obsession that got out of hand? When Claire tells her gruff workaholic husband of the occurrences, he is dismissive and emotionally unsupportive but she won't drop it, so he urges her to see a therapist. When she tells Doc that she believes a ghost is haunting her house, he advises making contact with the spirit. [Seriously. A trained & licensed professional psychiatrist is recommending to a highly vulnerable and suggestible patient, unstable & unhinging, that to probe her fears beyond being an extraordinary figment of imagination, damn the torpedoes and seek out this phantom by implement & procedure. Go on, indulge. Allow yourself to reach into the paranormal domain populated by scary boogeymen... Jesus. Welcome to 2000 and the new millennium].

Claire tells all to her flaky best friend, Jody, who provides the light comic relief in contrast to the brooding suspense. One ouija board later, the ladies hold a séance in the bathroom. But whatever this apparition, it will not go away. In her growing terror, Claire was sure that Mary's ghost was stalking her to reveal the truth of her death at the hands of foul play but that certainty proved false. The mystery of the unusual phenomena however reveals someone else entirely -- a girl named Madison Elizabeth Frank (introduced by Claire's computer turning itself on and the initials 'MEF' typing themselves repeatedly). The entity revs up in malevolence and now has a bone to pick with Norman, who in a few instances of observing spirit-possession take hold of his wife's body, himself begins wondering if his eyes & brain are playing tricks on him. Learning of Madison, Claire visits the girl's mother and accuses Norman of betrayal. He confesses having had an affair but when he broke it off, she threatened killing herself or Claire, and then disappeared. Jody knew about it too but said nothing fearing her bestie would harm herself and turn suicidal. Water now plays its deadly final hand as guilt drives Norman to the bathtub with a hairdryer to electrocute himself, and Claire to the wharf to drown herself. Husband is saved by wife, who in turn is saved by husband. A jewelry box that Claire spotted in the lake is retrieved by her and a key that she found earlier in a floor vent, unlocks it to reveal a clue as to what really happened to Madison. Norman tells the truth at last but when he pretends to call the police with information about the still-missing girl, Claire is attacked by him and in a relentless fight for her life, she races to keep from becoming another buried secret.

The storytelling has a clearly Hitchcock-style with its themes of doubt, delusion and deceit, obviously playing peekaboo with REAR WINDOW. As well, we also have one of Hitchcock's favourite framing mechanisms (besides using blondes as female leads): presenting the surface as an exterior mask before we unveil to reveal disturbing interior. (Hence the movie's title). On the outside, Norman (whose name alone in the Hitchcock-verse should be a dead giveaway that he is an illusion of innocence) and Claire look like a picture-perfect pairing but they have this considerable baggage underneath the coating of happiness, and what unravels leaves us with 2 people who are suddenly strangers to each other, unable to trust their partner. The direction makes good use of imagery and noise, and keeps you second-guessing with sudden turns. For those that might find WHAT LIES BENEATH contrived, I say the redemption lies in the more than effective acting. Michelle Pfeiffer as Claire is in almost every scene and does a great job making the viewer believe that Claire is heavily invested in everything happening to her. Her need to understand makes her sympathetic without overdoing it. Not an easy balance. The always reliable Harrison Ford as Norman is also solid in a satisfying departure from his more familiar 'reluctant-hero-swept-into-action' fare. Playing against type, he needs to be something other than what he seems and he pulls it off. In total, the movie is not altogether unpredictable and its trailers are far more to blame for ruining plot developments and character revelations, but this fault aside (thanks to marketing jackasses for the bad promo teasers), it's still very watchable enough to keep you hanging on -- and even as the restlessness begins to run off the rails, the resolution is reasonable.