WHAT LIES BENEATH

US, 2000, 130 minutes, Colour.
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dina Scarwid, Miranda Otto, James Remar, Ray Baker, Joe Morton.
Directed by Robert Zemekis

A huge box-office success. It comes from a talented director, Robert Zemeckis, who won his Oscar for Forrest Gump, and whose other films include Contact, the Back to the Future Trilogy, Who Killed Roger Rabbit and Romancing the Stone. He knows the popular audience very well and now delivers the year 2000's The Sixth Sense variation.

One of the problems of reviewing a film like this is the difficulty in trying not to give important plot elements away, so these comments are inevitably rather general. Basically one can say that this is an entertaining, quietly atmospheric thriller in affluent and glamorous settings. (Specialist science-fiction and ghost story fans will find it all to slow-moving.)

It stars Michelle Pfeiffer as a haunted and terrorised woman and Harrison Ford as her ambiguous scientist husband. He too has a formula and a potion - though his formula merely paralyses people while they are conscious rather than render them invisible. Like The Sixth Sense, the central character sees a ghost, but the ghost is a victim trying to reveal the truth about her death, unmask her killer and attain some peace.

This movie is geared to a wide audience - in less discriminating times it would have been referred to as a 'woman's picture'. It certainly appeals more to the feminine sensibility, especially through the character of the tormented woman. In this way the film is mostly Michelle Pfeiffer's and she takes us through the gamut of fear to terror and horror at the twists of the plot which entrap her.

1. A very popular ghost story? Psychological drama? Hitchcock-type thriller? The combination of these elements?

2. The Vermont setting: the house, the towns, the water, laboratories? A credible atmosphere? The musical score? The songs?

3. The stars and their screen presence? Harrison Ford acting against type? The dramatic effect of the stars?

4. The symbolism of the name: truth and lies? What lies beneath the surface? Of the person? Of Claire? Of Norman? The symbol of water - the unconscious - and the body of the dead girl under the water, the water in the bath, the water in the lake, the final battle between Claire and Norman in the water?

5. The film's focus on Claire: the background of her first marriage and the death of her husband, her love and caring for her daughter? Her musical career? Meeting Norman, swept of her feet, giving up her career? Their years together and the happiness? The opening and her nightmare, the water, the bath? Her love for her husband and their ease together, in the house, at socials? Her friendship with Jodie, their easy chat together? Jodie and the introduction of New Age themes and gurus? The importance of seeing Jodie off to college, the effect on Claire? The strange experiences in the house, doors opening? Her sense of a presence? The appearance of the ghost in the bathwater? The contrast with the couple next door, the viciousness of their fight, the noise of their lovemaking, the grief of the wife and Claire's intervention, her disappearance - and the touch of Rear Window with the husband and the bundles in the car? Her confronting him? The irony of meeting him and his wife at the party? The effect of the couple on Claire? The computer information: MEF? Claire and realising she had made a mistake about the wife? The information about the missing student? Her research, going to see her mother, the impression of the young girl, taking the lock of hair? Jodie and the decision to have the séance? Its failure? Her discussions with the psychiatrist, her openness, his frankness with her, urging her to confront the ghost? The book about witchcraft? The séance and the hair? The presence of the girl? Seemingly malevolent? Jodie and the information about Norman?

6. Norman and his declarations of love? Her discovery of the truth, the confrontation? Norman and his plausible stories? His gradual admission of knowing the girl, of being with her? The continued experiences, the dangers to Claire? The water, the dog, the box in the water, the appearance of the ghost in the water? The final confrontation between Norman and Claire, his telling her the truth? Her anger and her leaving, going back, finding him almost electrocuted? The seeming reconciliation? His using the anaesthetic on her, his wanting to kill her, putting her in the bath, the gradual movement, her ability to escape? The fight and his being wounded? The final fight and the water, the girl rescuing Claire? The grave and the laying of the ghost to rest? The repercussions on Claire?

7. Norman and Harrison Ford's screen presence? As the loving husband, the memories of his father (and his being irritated when this was mentioned so often)? His care for his stepdaughter? Supporting Claire when the girl went to college? At work and his research? At home, loving husband? Concern about Claire and her worry about the neighbours? His being away from home and writing his paper? Concern about Claire and getting her to go to the psychiatrist? The concern about the ghosts and the other experiences? His seeming to be a perfectly normal and loving husband? The socials and his chair of research? The gradual revelation by Jodie, the fact that he had met the girl, the actual affair? His asking forgiveness, his being persuasive? The gradual revelation of the truth and his saying that he did not want to disturb her? The boating on the lake? The seeming reconciliation? Claire and her anger at the truth, going out of the house, his being found in the bath - and his later glee at setting it all up? The final confession, his position, his ambitions, his having to murder Claire? The anaesthetic, putting her in the bath, the attack and his being injured? Claire and her getting out, the final confrontation in the water? The ghost rescuing Claire and avenging herself on Norman?

8. Jodie, friend, chatter? Divorcee? The ouija board, the book about witchcraft, the seances? Her continued support?

9. The academic world? The professor, Norman and his father, his research? The laboratory and the anaesthetic which could numb people, but yet their being fully conscious? The irony of Norman's use of it on Claire?

10. The girl, missing, the truth about her studies, scholarships, the affair, the attempted blackmail, Norman and his description of murdering her? Claire's visit to her mother, the recluse, the happy memories of her daughter?

11. The elements all coming together for a psychological thriller in terms of the unconscious? A ghost story and other dimensions? The conventions of the thriller with acknowledgment to Hitchcock: Rear Window, Psycho etc.?