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This all-wet suspense yarn is beneath you
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
What Lies Beneath
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out of four
Stars:
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid, Joe Morton, Amber
Valletta
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Distributor: DreamWorks
Rated: PG-13
for terror/ violence, sensuality, brief language
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When it comes to personal hygiene and movie scares, showers have it all over
baths. Showers, with their obscuring curtains and high noise levels, leave you
shut off and vulnerable to slippage if a maniac happens by.
A bath's perils? A stubborn ring of soap scum, mildew oh, and possible
drowning if you are distracted by the restless spirit of a supermodel. But that
won't happen unless you are trapped in a silly supernatural thriller.
As if Psycho weren't proof enough, here comes the slickly shallow What
Lies Beneath with its old-fashioned white tub perched atop leering gargoyle
heads. The fixture is on screen so much, it probably deserves shared billing
with the two Really Big Stars in the leads, Michelle Pfeiffer (stiff) and Harrison
Ford (stiffer), whose banter as spunky if troubled spouses ("Wanna fool
around?") provides less steam than the faucet.
Certainly, the tub offers a comparable if equally silent performance to fashion-spread
regular Amber Valletta as the fleeting spook. We know no good can come from
such a lavatory appliance, especially one that keeps mysteriously filling up
on its own. The water bills alone would be a constant nightmare.
A porcelain prop was also prominent in the feverishly erotic cautionary tale
Fatal Attraction, one of the most effective arguments against infidelity
ever made. And the creators of this glossy House Beautiful, life miserable
New England Gothic yarn probably would love it if you mentioned Beneath
in the same chilled breath. But even in the capable hands of director Robert
Zemeckis (Forrest Gump), who at least delivers a few cheap jolts and
dreamily eerie visuals, the marital ghost story is nothing more than a feeble
distraction.
The first hour is the red-herring course. Pfeiffer, distraught after her daughter
goes away to college, notices weird occurrences in the well-appointed Vermont
lakeside home she shares with second husband Ford, a genetic scientist absorbed
in his university work and haunted by the shadow of his genius father. Doors
swing open, pictures fall, the electricity goes off and on. And the dog acts
nervous, as all dogs do in films like this. Pfeiffer then snoops on the bickering
neighbors next door, fearing the man has killed his wife and her ghost is trying
to contact her.
Horror hooey! As the movie's spoilsport marketing campaign makes perfectly clear,
Ford has had an affair with a young woman who has since died, and now she's
the houseguest who won't go away. The only question that remains is whether
he killed her, and the drawn-out answer with its ridiculous twists is barely
worth the bother. One tense moment even involves a paralyzed Pfeiffer acting
with her feet, the better to admire her polish-free pedicure. As for Ford, he
should go back to being a stolid hero and leave the compromised cheater roles
to a slimy pro like Michael Douglas.
As dumb as it is, the movie could have risen to higher ground if it had taken
better advantage of its well-cast secondary characters (Diana Scarwid as Pfeiffer's
Ouija board partner, Joe Morton as a shrink who understands the therapeutic
value of spicy candies). Or at all explored Pfeiffer's abandoned past as a master
cellist and young widow. But Beneath never reaches much beyond the
surface, and what lies there is all too predictable.
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