Even with my current craving for Michelle Pfeiffer movies, this movie just didn’t hit me as much on this viewing as it has in the past. It’s still a perfect thriller to me, but it’s almost certainly too long. Its first half is essentially a red herring, Rear Window condensed into an hour with a different ending (I only just realised this today while watching the Hitchcock classic). There are hints at the main story, and some great basic character scenes between the two leads, but mostly it’s a distraction.

Where the movie really kicks off is after Pfeiffer finds herself paralysed in the bathtub. The movie just becomes “Land of the Impossible Shots” after that. I love Robert Zemeckis’ Hitchcock-like glee at putting the camera exactly where no-one would expect the camera to be, and pretty much for no real reason to boot, just because he can.

The music is surprisingly sparse, something I noticed on this viewing, and again, very Hitchcock- (well, Herrmann-) like. When you hear the score, which is loud and menacing Psycho stuff, it’s hard to believe the movie was once so amazingly quiet, it really goes from extreme to extreme on the sound, and this is probably why this movie will never fail to make me jump at least once.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005 at 2:55 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.