The Hand the Rocks the Cradle is apparently a remake, I was painfully unaware of this fact and watched as an original. 

 

The story follows a lawyer, Caitlin (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) that takes maternity leave to take care of her newborn and is instantly overwhelmed. A woman she met at her law firm, Polly (Maika Monroe), indicated she has a past in childcare and after running into her by happenstance, she agrees to hire this stranger as her nanny. Everything is smooth at first, with some obvious hitches when Polly is away with the kids such as immediately disobeying the mother’s orders on how to take care of the children. Things slowly but surely spiral as Polly can’t hide her true feelings forever and Caitlin must convince her family that she’s not going through a mental breakdown from postpartum depression. 

 

Maika Monroe is truly unpleasant in her disturbed internalization of all her built up anger and resentment. Purposefully so, with a tension knowing that something is going to clearly transpire and Monroe is really bad at hiding her intentions. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is possibly miscast as the mother in over her head with her second child and clearly going through something else mysterious (possibly lingering from her past). Her performance is unfortunately not carrying the desired weight to guide the insanity that is looming inside her screen counterpart. 

 

The script hits the paper-thin expected beats with no surprises, even as someone unaware of the original's existence at the time. The direction leaves quite a bit to be desired as this tale of obsession and deception is truly played out and is remarks bland at this point. 

 

The film is deadly serious, lacking any levity that could bring a bit of ease to the overall flow of dread. The rationality behind the actions taking place makes total sense (sorta) in the grand scheme of things, however we completely gloss over the details behind why we’ve gotten to this point of obsession / revenge. Quite literally throwing in exposition with little to back it up in the third act. 

 

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle needed a little more time to properly build these characters, with an emphasis on the backstory and flashbacks desperately needed. Maika Monroe is by far the best aspect of the feature, but even her internal dilemmas coming out into the open over and over can become tiresome in time. I’ve heard the original is much campier and to be honest so should've been this one - not everything can go the Evil Dead (2013) route and be a success story of completely changing tones.