The 2025 iteration of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (now streaming on Hulu) shows little interest in the histrionics that made the 1992 original a hot-button watercooler-talk movie and a camp classic from the era of the Preposterous Thriller (see also: cornball eyeball-bulgers Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct). The direct-to-streaming remake takes the core idea – maleficent nanny worms into nice normal family’s life to wreak torment – and updates it for the modern day, but proves that gaslighting is still as old as time itself. Michelle Garza Cervera directs Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Maika Monroe in the lead roles, and the result is about as shallow as it is entertaining.
The Gist: Caitlyn (Winstead) has an almost-perfect life: A supportive husband, Miguel (Raul Castillo). A spirited, if “willful” grade-school-age daughter, Emma (Mileiah Vega). A new baby, Josie. A big, fancy Los Angeles house that’s all glass, marble and 90-degree angles. And a job as a high-powered lawyer, because movies about low-powered lawyers are just wack. If only there was a stop sign to slow the traffic a bit on the street right outside their giant motorized metal gate – well, that would obviously make her existence perfect. Perhaps needless to say, Caitlyn’s life plays out in a highly controlled environment. Just as the gate keeps out potential interlopers, her refusal to feed herself or her family palm oil or sugar in any form cordons off all kinds of fun- er, unhealthinesses. The only thing that gets in is what Caitlyn allows in.
BUT. The movie makes a rather pointed point to show how Caitlyn takes – gasp! – prescription medication, and it’s almost certainly not for chronic sniffles. Hmm. Despite living in a bubble that sure seems designed to minimize interaction with the world at large, Caitlyn does nice things for people in need, possibly to assuage the guilt she feels for her higher-than-upper-middle-class life with the big beautiful backyard pool and guest house and refrigerator that would fit an entire family of suckling pigs if anyone around here ate saturated fat and that one wall in the kitchen that’s floor-to-ceiling cabinetry (and we’re not talking Ikea here). Did I mention she sleeps beneath a comforter, sorry, duvet, that probably cost $1100? Well, she sleeps beneath a duvet that probably cost $1100. Where was I? Right: She offers pro-bono work for people getting dicked over by landlords – that should keep her busy from now until eternity! – and that’s how she meets Polly (Monroe), a late 20-something who has nothing except a battered Prius and a flinty look in her eye that says I stabbed someone once and saw live intestines wriggle out and it didn’t really bother me.
So of course Caitlyn hires Polly to babysit the kids so she can go to “the stop sign meeting” without a kid on her hip. The arrangement goes so smashingly, and Polly’s rent situation hasn’t gotten any better – that’s apparently what pro bono work will get ya – so Caitlyn gives her a live-in nanny gig, which includes the key to the guest house. Caitlyn and Polly confide in each other a bit: they’re both attracted to women, so there’s maybe a little extra something there when Polly lays hands on Caitlyn to help her work out a cramp in her neck. It helps that Polly has a real rapport with Emma the Handful. What Caitlyn doesn’t know is that Polly watches her sleep, and sneaks the kids cupcakes, and slips a little something into the soup to make everyone puke. Polly shares tidbits of her sad childhood with Emma: “I had to eat tuna out of a can like a cat,” she says. Caitlyn begins to sixth-sense that everything’s not quite right with Polly, which is the perfect time for the plot and Miguel to reveal that Caitlyn Went Through Some Things; after having Emma, her postpartum depression was rough. Thus the groundwork is laid for no one to believe her when Polly’s sinister proclivities begin to boil. That Caitlyn. She’s just acting crazy again.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Underrated (but frustratingly imperfect) Charlize Theron vehicle Tully tackles the postpartum depression topic in a smart, emotionally charged manner.
Performance Worth Watching: Winstead and Monroe render The Hand That Rocks the Cradle functional. The underrated Winstead always subtly betrays her character’s vulnerabilities, beneath the sheen of money, comfort, success and neo-liberal ideals; Caitlyn seems to define herself by her failings. Monroe is markedly less understated, but she doesn’t need to be, since we know what’s coming; she’s almost alien in her demeanor, and profoundly communicates the cold banality of someone with ill intent.
Memorable Dialogue: Caitlyn opens up to Polly, sharing some of her postpartum struggles:
Caitlyn: That first year was something.
Polly: I think I could tell that.
Sex and Skin: A couple of suggestive, non-graphic sex scenes.
Our Take: Full disclosure: I harbor no affinity for the Preposterous Thriller, although I admire their shameless lasciviousness in the current era, when sex on the screen is minimized so much that movies often struggle to reflect the full reality of human life. That’s where The Hand That Rocks the Cradle remake betrays its modern disposition – the little massage Polly gives Caitlyn, which involves wrapping her hand around her throat, lacks the psychosexual charge that might’ve given the film a bit more thematic oomph. It’s not even an erotic moment; it instead comes off gently malevolent, and while any attempt at subtlety is a welcome subversion of Curtis Hanson’s ooh-look-at-me-I’m-so-shocking original film, a little more electricity would’ve elevated the scene from merely revealing to provocative.
So that key moment is a bust, memorable only for missing an opportunity. The only scene that comes close to achieving an elevation of an idea occurs at the dinner table, when Emma declares that she wants “to be kissing the woman” in a relationship, which stirs emotions and ideologies but is quickly dropped – it’s little more than a plot device, another way Polly worms her way into the family psyche and makes Caitlyn topsy-turvy. Otherwise, the film is an assemblage of suspicion/paranoia cliches for Winstead and Monroe to work through, albeit quite ably, their performances charismatic enough to reflect the broken people within their characters, who are trapped in a boilerplate frustrating-gaslighting plot.
Cervera’s direction is rock-solid, and cinematographer Jo Willems generates a sense of queasiness with skewed camera angles and slow-and-steady lateral movements as the film reaches a suspenseful climax that surprisingly finds a way to straddle the realistic and the ridiculous. The score is annoyingly overstated and persistent, full of warbly piano notes and intrusive synths (the Nick Cave needle drop is surprisingly tasteful, though). Some will decry the lack of camp here, which I can’t support; nor can I fully support Cervera’s dead-serious tone, which struggles to sell the inherent silliness of a story that’s inevitably going to try to rip out jugulars instead of sorting things out with a calm and reasonable conversation.
I rooted around for a core message, and came up with one shaky assertion Cradle Twenty Twenty-five almost makes: This is what happens when you’re too busy to play with your own kids! Nannies may relieve some of the burdens of parenthood, but what Caitlyn may not realize is that the fundamental grind is what truly bonds children and parents – it’s less the theme-park trips and big birthday parties, more the baths and meals and, in Emma’s case, trimming of the bangs, the stuff of routine, that defines relationships. But this film sometimes seems more interested in pondering whether psychological trauma or processed sugar is more detrimental to children’s well-being.
Our Call: A CUPCAKE NEVER KILLED ANYONE, CAITLYN. This Hand That Rocks exists on a precarious cusp: Is it wasting its talent, or is the talent elevating it just enough to make it watchable? It’s easy enough to appreciate Winstead and Monroe, so let’s go with the latter. STREAM IT.
How To Watch The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (2025)
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John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
