This movie was one of the first I saw on big screen as a teenager. It was a pretty strong experience. Nicole Kidman plays a woman with angelic appearance but the heart and the nature of a demon. It is a film about sin and manipulation. Bill Pullman is once again playing the typical good guy and with his looks he just can't get avoid getting type-casted as such. Alec Baldwin is his counterpart, the maverick surgeon who has a god complex and is secretly sleeping with his friend Pullman's wife.
The movie opens as a rather straightforward drama about a married couple, Andy (Pullman) and Tracy (Kidman), who are happy together but childless. Both are well liked and respected in their community but nobody knows what lies beneath. Andy bumps into his high school friend, the surgeon Jed (Baldwin), who is short on money. Andy offers him to live in his house and rent the room at the third floor. One night, Tracy experiences strong pains in her abdomen and is taken to the hospital where an intoxicated Jed performs an emergency surgery on her. The worried Andy is told by his friend Jed that he found a fetus inside his wife, but that it was aborted due to a cyst that lay on her ovary. Andy is initially glad to hear of his wife being pregnant but then decides to consent to the removal of her other ovary as well. However, his wife is angry over him consenting to such a thing since it means she can never have children and leaves him. Tracy also sues Jed after finding out he had been drinking prior to the surgery. But soon thereafter, Andy learns that he is sterile and therefore could not have impregnated his wife. He starts searching for the true father of the unborn child and soon a disturbing truth is revealed, along with a lot more that lies under it all.
The story is well crafted and very suspenseful. The revelation of the child's father's identity and the motives behind Kidman's lawsuit and the divorce from her husband are truly surprising and pretty disturbing as well. All three main actors do a fine job and even though I have a feeling Pullman didn't get enough publicity for his role here (he is missing from the poster), his role is the most satisfactory as well as challenging. The wronged husband seeking revenge is a typical motif in such Gothic film-noirs but seldom has there been made a film with such a strong and suspenseful story. I give it a 7 and a half.
The movie opens as a rather straightforward drama about a married couple, Andy (Pullman) and Tracy (Kidman), who are happy together but childless. Both are well liked and respected in their community but nobody knows what lies beneath. Andy bumps into his high school friend, the surgeon Jed (Baldwin), who is short on money. Andy offers him to live in his house and rent the room at the third floor. One night, Tracy experiences strong pains in her abdomen and is taken to the hospital where an intoxicated Jed performs an emergency surgery on her. The worried Andy is told by his friend Jed that he found a fetus inside his wife, but that it was aborted due to a cyst that lay on her ovary. Andy is initially glad to hear of his wife being pregnant but then decides to consent to the removal of her other ovary as well. However, his wife is angry over him consenting to such a thing since it means she can never have children and leaves him. Tracy also sues Jed after finding out he had been drinking prior to the surgery. But soon thereafter, Andy learns that he is sterile and therefore could not have impregnated his wife. He starts searching for the true father of the unborn child and soon a disturbing truth is revealed, along with a lot more that lies under it all.
The story is well crafted and very suspenseful. The revelation of the child's father's identity and the motives behind Kidman's lawsuit and the divorce from her husband are truly surprising and pretty disturbing as well. All three main actors do a fine job and even though I have a feeling Pullman didn't get enough publicity for his role here (he is missing from the poster), his role is the most satisfactory as well as challenging. The wronged husband seeking revenge is a typical motif in such Gothic film-noirs but seldom has there been made a film with such a strong and suspenseful story. I give it a 7 and a half.