#Hide and seek 2005 movie#

#Hide and seek 2005 movie#

That is the law that says no actor is in a movie unless his character is necessary. There was a point in the movie when suddenly everything clicked, and the Law of Economy of Characters began to apply. I found the third act to be a disappointment. To find out the answer to these and other more unexpected questions, you will have to see the movie. When she produces those scary drawings, for example, of people dying, are they prescient? Troubled? Or just a form of release? Fanning does an accomplished job of making us wonder what she knows and what she imagines. Up until about that point, the movie has played convincingly, within the terms of its premise. There is also some oddness going on with the neighbors.

Here he hangs around way too much, and always seems about to ask a question and then deciding not to. Baker is so reliable playing clean-cut but creepy types that once, when I saw him in a simply likable role, I was caught off guard. This possibility is enhanced by the presence in the cast of Dylan Baker as the local sheriff, a nosy type who carries the keys to all the summer homes on a big ring on his belt. well, perhaps Charlie is not imaginary at all. Something unpleasant happens to the family cat. Calloway is awakened in the middle of the night and finds a bloody message written on the bathroom walls. He consults a colleague ( Famke Janssen), who specializes in children, meets Emily, and agrees. Calloway knows kids have imaginary friends, and that troubled kids often invent confidants to share their fears.

Then there is the matter of her imaginary friend, Charlie. Slit her wrists with a razor.' Calloway gently tells his daughter he doesn't think their guest needs to hear that right now, at dinner, but there is a way Emily has of staring out of her big round eyes and seeming to look into darker spheres than the rest of us can see. 'Did Daddy tell you that my mommy died?' little Emily asks, volunteering: 'She killed herself in our bathtub. David Calloway is a patient and reasonable man, who treats his daughter with kindness, but there's something else going on.Ĭonsider, for example, the night when Calloway brings home a neighbor woman, Elizabeth ( Elisabeth Shue), for dinner. David Calloway, the father, and Emily, as his pre-adolescent daughter, create characters that seem, within the extremes of their situation, convincing and sympathetic. Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, as Dr. This is a setup for a typical horror film, but for the first hour, at least, 'Hide and Seek' feels more like M.