This article contains spoilers for What Lies Beneath (2000)What Lies Beneath was made almost as an afterthought. Released in 2000, the supernatural thriller was a side project for Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future), while he was waiting for Tom Hanks to cut down weight and grow a beard for his role in Cast Away. It isn’t considered one of Zemeckis’s best movies (though there is a lot of competition), but it should be.
And the reception for the movie matched the casual approach. It received mixed reviews, and only has a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It excelled at the box office, but otherwise the feedback was lukewarm at best, resulting in a movie that is easy to overlook. But this is an excellent psychological thriller, that keeps you riveted. With a great story, excellent performances from two classic actors, and an edge-of-your-seat conclusion, this atmospheric film is highly underrated, and worth a second look.
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An Atmospheric Story
DreamWorks Pictures
This story sets the mood in the best way. Taking place mostly in a large lakeside house, the mixture of fog, classical music, strange neighbors, therapist appointments, and especially the water, gives this film a unique vibe to it. The story follows Claire Spencer, who is struggling with her relationship to her workaholic husband Norman, and with depression after her daughter leaves for college. Spending most of her time alone in their lakeside Vermont house, Claire notices the neighbors fighting, and - in an homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, she begins to spy on them, eventually suspecting the husband of murdering his wife. The hints of a ghostly presence in her home don’t help.
But then the wife turns up, very much not murdered, and we begin to doubt Claire’s sanity, as she also doubts herself. Claire continues to experience ghostly messages and hallucinations, growing increasingly anxious and upset, as the atmosphere of the film builds. The questions pull us in, until we’re wrapped into the mystery, feeling just as unsettled and unsure of things as Claire is.
It’s only when Claire finally makes the connection to a missing student of her husband’s, that she begins to understand the truth. The clues keep leading her to water, and she is drawn towards the lake, diving down to find evidence that her husband had an affair with the girl, and then killed her. He claims it was an accident, but the ghost, once believed to be malevolent, begins to look like an ally - and Claire’s husband begins to look dangerous.
Great Performances
One of the true highlights of the film is watching the performances of Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. Even Roger Ebert, who gave the film only two stars, praised their performances in his review. Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford are two classic actors, and in the year 2000, they both had impressive resumes and were on the top of their game. Zemeckis cleverly uses Ford’s dependable charm as he plays Claire’s husband Norman, to lure the audience into questioning if he’s innocent or malicious, until the very end of the film.
But it’s Michelle Pfeiffer who steals the show. Ebert described her as convincing and sympathetic, rightly pointing out that she perfectly balances the difficult position in a quiet thriller like this, between overacting and underacting. We spend the start of the movie wondering if she is actually experiencing something supernatural, or just hallucinating. We question her sanity, until that morphs into the audience rooting for her, in the final thrilling scenes of the film.
A Thrilling Ending
What Lies Beneath gets the nature of “thriller” done better than anything else. It has even been called one of the best thrillers ever made. The ending is the final reveal of all the buildup of mystery and red herrings that came before it. When the truth finally hits, it’s almost too late, and the last 20 minutes are Claire’s desperate attempt to get away alive, after learning the truth.
She finds herself drugged and completely paralyzed by her husband, then placed inside a bathtub, which he begins to fill with water, as he tells her the story he will weave of her suicide for their friends and family. Pfeiffer’s acting is minimal in this scene, and yet somehow gripping - her eyes wide and panicked, and the tiny movements of her body as she slowly begins to get her movement back, with the water rising up her face.
The climax of the story continues, and keeps us on the edge of our seats. With help from the ghost of the murdered student, Norman falls and is knocked unconscious. Claire manages to shake off the effects of the paralytic, and tries to escape in their truck. But Norman, who was knocked out, wakes up in time to follow her, sneaking into the truck bed and attacking her until she drives over a bridge - right where Norman disposed of the student’s body and car. They crash into the water, where the ghost helps a final time - freeing Claire, and trapping Norman beneath the water.
