“What Lies Beneath” Less Than Scary

Okay, I admit I’m a bit behind in the movie-watching department. I just rented the 2000 movie What Lies Beneath. I can’t say I was really impressed with it, but here’s the scoop.

Norman (Harrison Ford) and Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) Spencer have the perfect life: a beautiful, college-bound daughter, a gorgeous new house by a lake in Vermont, and Norman’s successful career as a geneticist.

Claire sees and hears her new neighbors arguing on several occasions. When the husband sneaks a body-sized bundle into the trunk of his car on a rainy night, she thinks he’s murdered his wife. After doing some checking, Norman assures Claire that the husband wouldn’t hurt a flea. But Claire won’t stop believing what she saw, and when a specter appears in her bathroom, Claire looks deeper into the mystery.

While at first she believes the ghost is that of the murdered neighbor, she learns that a college student (Amber Valetta) was murdered about a year ago, and she’s still listed as a missing person. Not coincidentally, Claire had been in a car crash about a year ago, and she can’t quite recall the details surrounding it. Claire believes the ghost is real, but husband Norman ignores her claims of seeing the dead woman and sends her to a psychiatrist.

Throughout the movie the ghost haunts Claire, her image appearing up in the reflection of Claire’s bathtub and in the lake behind her house. The front door opens voluntarily, appliances switch on and off, and the same picture keeps falling and breaking. Who is the girl and why is she haunting Claire?

The girl turns out to be a former student of Norman’s who disappeared. Did she run away? Is she dead? Claire begins to wonder what happened to the girl, and if her husband had anything to do with it. So she becomes an self-proclaimed investigator, seeking clues to the mystery. Eerily enough, the missing girl looks much like Claire.

The first forty-five minutes of the movie is quite slow, but pay close attention as much of the dialogue leads up to solving Claire’s mystery.

Credit should be given to both Pfeiffer and Ford, who are as always, extraordinary actors. Pfeiffer’s character Claire is extremely believable, making the viewer feel sorry for her having to be frightened by the ghost and have a husband who won’t understand her fears. Ford is quite clever as the intriguing Dr. Spencer, who pretends to be hard at work on a research paper and doesn’t have time for his wife’s suspicions that their home is haunted.

The supporting cast is thin, with most of them not having more than a scene or two. Veteran film director Robert Zemeckis (whose movies include Contact, Forrest Gump, Back to the Future and Romancing the Stone) gives the film a suitably eerie feel, using a series of creative camera positions to achieve certain visual tricks. This movie takes audiences on a faster ride with quick camera cuts and sharp picture angles.

As with many of Zemeckis’ movies, What Lies Beneath is quite predictable. It’s almost painfully obvious what’s going to happen next. It’s not a bad movie, just a little too easy to figure out. But it’s worth watching as Ford and Pfeiffer work very well together.

Click here for information on the film from the Internet Movie Database.

Click here for a review on Yahoo! Movies.