A middle aged man and his young daughter go to live by the woods in upstate New York. Tragedy follows them, though, in 2005's Hide and Seek. Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning star as the man and his daughter in this movie with a 12% Rotten Tomatoes score. I wouldn't say the film is nearly as bad as that score suggests though I would say many of the specific criticisms are valid.
At the beginning of the film, De Niro's wife, played by Steven Spielberg's ex-wife (and Jessica Rabbit's singing voice) Amy Irving, is found dead in the bathtub. Dakota Fanning witnesses it and she remains traumatised afterwards, as you might expect.
De Niro's a psychologist and in his opinion the move to a distant house in the cold, gloomy woods is just what Dakota Fanning needs. His colleague, Famke Janssen, disagrees, but he calmly overrules her. How nice it was to see Famke Jannsen again.
This was back in the period when everyone thought it was a good idea to be the next M. Night Shyamalan so Hide and Seek has a twist ending. Most people will see it coming even though, as many reviews point out, it doesn't make sense. I wouldn't use the word "silly", though, because the movie is actually very dour. Whatever psychological weirdness and thriller stuff is happening, the bottom line is that there's this profoundly unhappy little girl who experiences trauma after trauma and every shred of hope for a better life is systematically taken from her. It's an extremely depressing movie, especially since Dakota Fanning gives a great performance.
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