ereinion
This movie was one of the first I saw on big screen as a teenager. It was a pretty strong experience. Nicole Kidman plays a woman with angelic appearance but the heart and the nature of a demon. It is a film about sin and manipulation. Bill Pullman is once again playing the typical good guy and with his looks he just can't get avoid getting type-casted as such. Alec Baldwin is his counterpart, the maverick surgeon who has a god complex and is secretly sleeping with his friend Pullman's wife.The movie opens as a rather straightforward drama about a married couple, Andy (Pullman) and Tracy (Kidman), who are happy together but childless. Both are well liked and respected in their community but nobody knows what lies beneath. Andy bumps into his high school friend, the surgeon Jed (Baldwin), who is short on money. Andy offers him to live in his house and rent the room at the third floor. One night, Tracy experiences strong pains in her abdomen and is taken to the hospital where an intoxicated Jed performs an emergency surgery on her. The worried Andy is told by his friend Jed that he found a fetus inside his wife, but that it was aborted due to a cyst that lay on her ovary. Andy is initially glad to hear of his wife being pregnant but then decides to consent to the removal of her other ovary as well. However, his wife is angry over him consenting to such a thing since it means she can never have children and leaves him. Tracy also sues Jed after finding out he had been drinking prior to the surgery. But soon thereafter, Andy learns that he is sterile and therefore could not have impregnated his wife. He starts searching for the true father of the unborn child and soon a disturbing truth is revealed, along with a lot more that lies under it all.The story is well crafted and very suspenseful. The revelation of the child's father's identity and the motives behind Kidman's lawsuit and the divorce from her husband are truly surprising and pretty disturbing as well. All three main actors do a fine job and even though I have a feeling Pullman didn't get enough publicity for his role here (he is missing from the poster), his role is the most satisfactory as well as challenging. The wronged husband seeking revenge is a typical motif in such Gothic film-noirs but seldom has there been made a film with such a strong and suspenseful story. I give it a 7 and a half.
AaronCapenBanner
Harold Becker directed this suspense thriller that stars Bill Pullman & Nicole Kidman as Andy & Tracy, a seemingly happily married couple who would desperately like to have children. Alec Baldwin plays a new doctor in town named Jed whom Andy used to know. After Tracy suffers a botched operation at the hands of Jed, his life falls apart, although it gets worse with both a serial killer loose on a college campus(with him as suspect!) and his growing suspicion of his wife, which proves more than justified... Good cast and direction, but script is too convoluted and far-fetched to be believed, piling too much on poor Andy, who is the undeserved victim of a most "malicious" plot.
statuskuo
It's not a bad movie, only marginal. Better than today's movies, but still...it feels dated. I like the performances of the leads. But it gets frustratingly mean spirited as it gets to the end. Overall, it's a nostalgic watch very reminiscent of Hitchcock, but falls short when the people we want to suffer, don't. And there are inexplicable moments that draw out the story, such as the riddle- ladened drunken mother. There is NO reason she couldn't just come out and confess about her daughter.Also, they throw in an attorney to misguide you. There are plenty of moments where you do want to just shake the lead character's shoulder and tell him to leave. Or that the payoff to the comeuppance of the antagonist was to reveal an "a-ha!" moment. This seems forced.It's a good watch on a slow night.
Simon Harris
Andy Safian is a small town college dean, and his wife Tracey is a school teacher. They desperately want children, and we get the impression they have been trying for some time. Enter Jed Hill, new Doctor at the local hospital, who meets and befriends Andy. So much so that Andy offers him the opportunity to rent a room at his home until he can get settled. Jed accepts, and Andy and Tracey become his landlords. Andy is distracted as he is dealing with the fact that someone is raping and murdering young girls from his college. The Police are all over the case, and even Andy himself is not above suspicion, and he is doing all he can to protect his young students. Against this backdrop, Jed is out letting off steam one night, and is drunk in a local bar when his emergency beeper goes. Jed rushes into the hospital to find Tracey, his landlord and his best friend's wife on the operating table. Andy arrives within minutes and Jed has to speak to him and tell him he can save Tracey, but must remove her ovaries, as they are necrotic. Andy of course tells Jed to save Tracey's life, which Jed does. However, when Tracey wakes from under the anaesthetic and finds she cannot ever bear children the movie really gets going. Tracey sues Jed and the Hospital. Jed, it seems, when forced to make a judgement call, got it wrong and removed a healthy ovary. Andy is left alone, with Tracey too traumatised to speak to him, and in hiding while her lawyer gets in to the business of suing the hospital, ending Jed's medical career and getting her compensation for the loss of her ovaries. Andy is desperate to contact her, but doesn't know where to find her. Jed has resigned himself to moving out of the Safian home, and is quietly drinking himself to oblivion in a rented hotel room. Out of sheer desperation to see and talk to Tracey, Andy muscles his way into her lawyers office, and demands to see her. Her lawyer turns him down flat, on instructions from Tracey. Clearly she does not want Andy in her life at all at this point. Then, a small scrap of seemingly innocuous information is let slip by the lawyer: he has worked for Tracey before, when he did some work that involved Tracey's mother. This is news to Andy, who had always believed that Tracey's parents were long dead. In desperation, Andy tracks down Tracey's mother. The film steps up another gear at this point, and is well worth the effort of watching it. There are no weak spots in this cast, Pullman, Kidman and Baldwin are note perfect, but there is great support from such luminaries as George C Scott and the absolutely wonderful Anne Bancroft, who steals her one, pivotal, critical scene effortlessly. But that's not the end of it, there's also the fine Peter Gallagher, the lovely Bebe Neuwirth (who makes a great cop by the way), and in lesser roles, there's Tobin Bell (who became SAW, and shows his scary credentials here too) and finally a bit part for Gwyneth Paltrow as a surly student. The remainder of the film is full of surprises, and when the curtain is finally pulled back and the magician revealed, you have to marvel at the depth, scope and ambition of the plot. The movie easily bears multiple viewings, as you will undoubtedly spot things the second and even third times that failed to register on the first viewing. A clever, dark and intricate movie, with all the stars on top form. A last word about Alec Baldwin. His acting is out of the top drawer in this movie, and that is not meant to detract from the performances of Pullman and Kidman, who are also very very good. I guarantee you that you will watch the scene where Andy (Pullman)tracks down Tracey's mother (Bancroft) again and again. It is an absolute delight.
