LA MANO SULLA CULLA

The nanny from hell in the Seattle area

A well-to-do couple in the Puget Sound region (Matt McCoy & Annabella Sciorra) hires a nanny not knowing that she has axes to grind (Rebecca De Mornay). Ernie Hudson plays a mentally challenged laborer while Julianne Moore is on hand as the wife’s best friend.

"The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" (1992) is a drama/thriller in the mold of contemporaneous flicks like “The Stepfather” (1987) and “The Crush” (1993). The events even take place in the same area as those. While it’s the least of these, it’s not far off in overall quality.

It has a bit of a Lifetime movie vibe and the serviceable Sciorra doesn’t trip my trigger while De Mornay’s character is a turn-off because she’s obviously nutzoid. Meanwhile Moore superbly plays a biyatch while McCoy is ineffectual as the hubby. The locations are fabulous, however.

The movie runs 1 hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Seattle, Tacoma and Issaquah, Washington.

GRADE: B-/C+

For a while, Rebecca de Mornay is quite menacing as the live-in nanny "Peyton". She is hired by "Claire" (Annabella Sciorra) and her husband "Michael" (Matt McCoy) to look after their baby. Initially all kind and helpful, we soon begin to suspect that she has another agenda - and that she will stop at nothing to attain it! Sadly, after about twenty minutes the story rather settles into a predictable pattern as she gradually manipulates the family, exploits and creates some cracks in the marriage (or tries to, anyway) before a denouement that is really rather weak and takes just a bit to long to arrive. The production is maybe just a bit too pristine, too sterile, to sustain the sense of peril and the dialogue is just too wordy with scenarios taking too long to cook. Still, it's quite watchable film just one that I think has dated rather over the last thirty years into a mediocre television thriller.