It is rare when I find myself standing completely apart from the majority of the criticalcommunity in responding to a particular film, but frankly I cannot understand why somany critics have taken such delight in lambasting "What Lies Beneath," RobertZemeckis' over-the-top supernatural homage to Alfred Hitchcock.

Criticized for having both too much and too little story (either the plot is too thick or it'stoo predictable or, sometimes, both), this genre-bending exercise in cinematic suspense isby no stretch of the imagination a great film, but it is certainly entertaining, well-made, andnever boring. That one esteemed critic went so far as to call it "a cinematic disaster" isonly the most extreme indication of how negative the critical reaction has been, yet when Isaw it, the spectators in the theater were scared, tense, and relieved in all the right places.In other words, they experienced exactly what director Robert Zemeckis andscreenwriter Clark Gregg intended them to experience: They had a good time.

It is true that the plotline of "What Lies Beneath" suffers because of the film's misguidedmarketing campaign, which revealed for no good reason in the trailer a major plot turnthat effectively renders the first third of the film impotent if you know what it is. This wasunfortunate and shameful behavior on the part of the DreamWorks marketing department,and those who missed the trailer will have a richer experience watching the film becausesome of the major surprises will be exactly that: surprises.

The main characters are Norman (Harrison Ford), a successful geneticist who is on theverge of a major breakthrough, and his wife, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer), who gave up herprofession as a cellist in order to raise their daughter and support Norman's work. Whenthe film begins, they are taking their daughter to college for the first time, and Claire is leftwith empty-nest syndrome. This may be why she takes particular interest in their newneighbors, who fight as loud as they have sex. It isn't long before the "Rear Window"(1954) homage is in full gear, with Claire watching her neighbors through binoculars andsuspecting that foul play is afoot.

The main focus of the film is supernatural, though, with the presence of a mysteriouswoman haunting Claire at her home. A particular picture falls to the floor, the front doorbreathes itself open, a bathtub upstairs mysteriously fills itself with steaming water, voiceswhisper in the dark. These events happen only to Claire, and Norman is less thanunderstanding because he feels that Claire's experiences are simply a way for her to bringattention to herself and distract him from his work. Not knowing whether theseexperiences are real or imagined, Claire becomes determined to find out who the ghost isand what she wants.

There is more, much more, to the plot than this, but to detail any further would risk ruiningthe experience more than the trailer has already done. Like any of Hitchcock's best films(especially "Vertigo" and "Psycho"), the enjoyment in "What Lies Beneath" is waiting tofind out what's next, even though many of the plot developments are, quite honestly, a bitpredictable.

Yet, is that always a significant flaw? In their pressing demands to be completelysurprised at every turn, I think many critics ignore the notion that familiarity can be anenjoyable aspect of watching a genre film. Does every great suspense-thriller have a"Sixth Sense"-like head-spinner up its sleeve? From the way they are writing about "WhatLies Beneath," many critics seem to think that it should have. Yet, take a look at one ofthis film's major inspirations: Hitchcock's "Rear Window." Is there a movie that is morepredictable that that? "Rear Window" has many red herrings and false leads, yet theanswer to the mystery is, in the end, the most obvious one. Thus, the enjoyment of theexperience is getting there, not the final destination.

This, I would argue, is why "What Lies Beneath" is not even remotely as bad as somecritics are making it out to be. Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump," "Contact") hasapparently always wanted to make a Hitchcockian thriller, and he has obviously studiedup on the great master's camera moves and use of sound and timing. There are a numberof solid "boo" moments, and Zemeckis makes expert use of the frame (much as JohnCarpenter did in "Halloween"), turning every camera pan into a tense question of "Whatwill pop out next?" Some people hate that kind of suspense because, in all truth, it's tooeasy. A slow pan, a sudden burst of strings on the soundtrack, and the effect is achieved.Yet, it's a staple of the genre, and it functions to keep the audience wary for bigger thingsdown the road.

But, jump-out-of-the-dark tactics are hardly the only techniques Zemeckis employs. Forinstance, there is one particularly harrowing scene near the end that takes place in abathtub slowly filling with water, and a character who has been paralyzed with a drugmust figure out a way to get the drain open before drowning. Zemeckis doesn't overloadthe scene with music and clutter; instead, he lets it play out slowly and quietly, taking usinside the character's head and giving us both a visual and an aural point-of-view thatsticks us right down in the filling bathtub. It's a moment of which Hitchcock would beproud because it works perfectly.

Some critics have also jumped all over the end of the film: preposterous, ridiculous,laugh-inducing, silly. To a certain extent, I agree. The plot does become quite labored inthe last ten minutes as it desperately attempts to bring everything full circle and take thecharacters to the scene of an earlier crime, and here the supernatural aspect takes anastounding turn into the potentially ludicrous. It turns out that "What Lies Beneath" isprimarily a from-the-grave tale of revenge, essentially one of those potboilers thatappeared in old EC comics like "Tales From the Crypt" drawn out to 127 minutes. Aflaw? Possibly. Detrimental to the whole the film? Hardly.

Outside of Zemeckis' technical (if not particularly personal) expertise, the film also workslargely on Pfeiffer's performance. Despite Harrison Ford being given top billing, Pfeiffer'sClaire is truly the main character, and it is with her that we identify as she goes through thetrauma of doubting her own sanity before diving headfirst into a solving a mystery thatmight not exist in the first place.

©2000 James Kendrick