‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ Review: Hulu’s Parental Terror Remake

Rewatching the juicy parental-nightmare thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle three decades after its release is a reminder of what a polished, versatile craftsman the late Curtis Hanson was. During the 10 years of his filmmaking career that followed, he directed the white-knuckle adventure thriller The River Wild; the hard-boiled noir L.A. Confidential, which won him an Oscar as co-writer; the bittersweet comedy-drama Wonder Boys; and the quasi-memoir Eminem hip-hop saga 8 Mile — all of which still hold up.

It’s no big surprise that Hulu’s new take on The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, directed by Michelle Garza Cervera from a script by Micah Bloomberg, can be filed under “unnecessary remakes.” By those standards, it’s far from the worst. Who remembers 2008’s The Women, 1993’s Born Yesterday or 2002’s Swept Away, just to name three mangled classics? But atrocity is a low bar to clear.

This modern twist on a screenplay that originated as Amanda Silver’s film school thesis doubles down on traumatic history and victim-blaming and stirs in some undercooked female homoerotic tension. But it dilutes the original’s lurid pleasures and destabilizes the central dynamic by putting the mother who has it all and the nanny hell-bent on destroying her life in a mental-instability contest. Maybe two damaged women for the price of one seemed a good idea on paper?

It also makes an underwhelming tradeoff in the sharp-best-friend-who-discovers-the-truth department. For many of us, hard-edged luxury real estate broker Marlene Craven ranks among Julianne Moore’s most delicious performances. In these joyless times in which constructive criticism can get you marched off to HR, hearing Marlene snap at her Harvard-educated male assistant is like good sex.

Real estate attorney Caitlin Morales (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is expecting her second child when she meets Polly Murphy (Maika Monroe) while doing pro bono tenants’ rights work for low-income people requiring housing assistance. Soon after the baby is born, they run into each other again at a farmers’ market, where Caitlin is alarmed to hear that Polly is still struggling. But she offers her services as a babysitter.

Despite Monroe playing the quietly intense Polly with the hollow-eyed stare of an Olsen twin and the warmth and social skills of Travis Bickle, Caitlin hires her after a cursory check of her childcare experience. Her architect husband Miguel (Raúl Castillo) agrees that Caitlin is stretched thin and could use some help. He worries that her struggles are a replay of the post-partum depression that followed the birth of their first child, Emma (Mileiah Vega), who’s now 10 and prone to tantrums, usually directed at her controlling mother.

While doing little to hide her creepy vibe, Polly starts in on small acts of sabotage — she messes with Caitlin’s meds, putting her more on edge; spikes the cioppino at a dinner party, giving everyone upset stomachs; and ignores Caitlin’s no-sugar veto for Emma and her baby sister Josie. Instead, she makes a secret pact with Emma over cupcakes and turns the infant off her mother’s unsweetened breast milk.

Somehow though, Polly makes herself indispensable, so when she starts talking about leaving unaffordable Los Angeles, Caitlin and Miguel move her into the guest quarters intended for his aging Mexican parents. (In a wry dig that’s the closest the movie comes to a subversive vein, Caitlin reveals, “His Mom’s no fan of the States.”)

The airy house is a handsome contemporary construction in wood and floor-to-ceiling glass (we know someone will go through at least one pane). But what kind of family-in-peril thriller fails to take advantage of a swimming pool just begging for mayhem?

Polly early on casually tells Caitlin she dates women, prompting her employer to volunteer that she was also queer before she met Miguel. But whatever sexual frisson this was intended to implant, it’s too underdeveloped to add much, even after Polly catches Caitlin staring through her window while she gets into some erotic asphyxiation sex with her punky friend Amelia (Yvette Lu).

Meanwhile, the nanny’s behavior becomes more concerning to Caitlin, notably after she brings home fireworks for Emma to play with. But only Caitlin’s friend and colleague Stuart (Martin Starr) takes her fears seriously enough to investigate, which is a bad decision. Duh.

Miguel is more convinced that his wife is having another post-partum episode, overreacting even to Emma’s abrupt declaration at the dinner table that she wants a wife, not a husband, when she grows up. Castillo, as always, is an appealing presence, but he can’t do much with a role in which he shows all the signs of being a loving, sensitive partner and yet refuses to listen until it’s almost too late.

Polly’s background is suggested through fragments of childhood hardship she shares with Emma and a horror-style prologue showing a young girl standing in front of a burning house. But unlike Hanson’s film, where we knew from the start what was driving the vengeful widow going by “Peyton” (played with a vicious chill by Rebecca De Mornay), Bloomberg’s script teases out the root of Polly’s seething grudge for far too long.

By the time questions are answered, not just regarding Polly but also the way in which her history intersects with Caitlin’s, the glacial pacing and lack of suspense have dulled the thriller’s hook. Mexican filmmaker Garza Cervera’s debut was the well-received 2022 motherhood body horror Huesera. But her second feature, while quite slick, has the insipid feel of a Lifetime movie.

Attempts to bulk up on dread with a whispery synth score and gloomy vocal tracks by Low and Nick Cave don’t yield much in terms of atmosphere, and the jolts of ugly violence seem inorganic to the general tone.

The actors are fine, though Monroe has been more effective when subjected to menace (in movies like It Follows and Longlegs) rather than doling it out. Winstead (looking very Rosamund Pike) does what’s required of her, to the extent of making Caitlin abrasive as well as disturbed. But this is a remake with few persuasive reasons to exist.

What a sad testament to the state of the industry that while the original film topped the U.S. box office for four consecutive weeks and went on to turn a tidy profit with worldwide grosses of $140 million against a budget of less than $12 million, the redo will drop on Hulu and, like all but a handful of prestige streaming originals, be swiftly forgotten.