Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) is happily married to Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford). She lives in an ideal old house on a lake. But things may not be perfect. Emotionally unstable, she can’t deal with her daughter leaving for college. She also was injured in an automobile accident a year ago, still mourns her first husband, and misses her music career. So, when she starts seeing a ghost, she suspects her neighbor of killing his wife, but her husband is afraid she is losing her mind.
The passage of time is good for this film, as those who haven’t seen it can do so without the interference of the worst advertising campaign in history. What Lies Beneath is a suspense film, with mysteries and misdirects, but the trailer happily revealed everything except the last “twist,” and that final is easy to surmise. Watch the trailer, and you might as well pick up the film at the hour and thirty minute mark. I’d also suggest you skip a majority of reviews written in 2000, as they follow the lead of the distributor and say too much.
If you haven’t been spoiled, what you have here is Robert Zemeckis (Contact, Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her) pretending he’s Hitchcock. Brian De Palma, who was the previous winner of the “I Stole From a Dead Director” award, must hand the trophy to Zemeckis, who puts more Hitchcock in than Hitchcock ever did. We get camera moves, music, specific scenes, and plot elements all pulled from the rotund master’s works. Zemeckis doesn’t deny it (it would be silly to try), stating that he was trying to make the film Hitchcock would have if he’d had digital effects. Well, on a directing side, he succeeds, and so does the movie. If you’re going to steal, do it from the best. All the tricks that made a viewer jump or become tense are used with great effect here. Zemeckis knows what he’s doing, and I’ve rarely seen such exuberant direction.
The script is another matter. First (and only) time writer, Clark Gregg, isn’t sure how to write a suspense film, even when he’s swiping from Hitchcock. I’m afraid he should have pillaged more. He can’t move the story along or explain what is happening. So he introduces Jody (Diana Scarwid) who pops into the movie whenever Claire has a feeling to express or some background exposition to discuss. I need friends like this. Plus there is the ghost, a very non-Hitchcockian item, that barely has anything to do with the film. What Lies Beneath is not a ghost story; it is a suspense story with a ghost tossed in. Whenever the plot stalls, the ghost pops up to move it along. Clair is trying to figure what happened in the past but is stalled, so the ghost pops in to possess her for a moment and feed her the info. The ghost could be removed from the film and replaced with some detective work. When that’s the case, pull the ghost. If I have to suspend my disbelief in active dead girls, I want there to be a payoff. There is also the issue of the red herring that takes up half the film. Yes, red herrings are good in a suspense film, but I felt I’d wasted thirty minutes when a plot thread frays and then vanishes.
What Lies Beneath should have been a topnotch suspense story. Even with the script errors, and the stiff acting of Ford, it isn’t a bad way to spend a stormy evening.