Hulu Remake Makes Empty Promises
With a near-total re-imagining of its source material, Michelle Garza Cervera’s “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” layers contemporary political themes atop Curtis Hanson’s original 1992 domestic thriller, about an uncanny nanny invading the sanctity of the American home. The remake, releasing directly to Hulu, turns the structure of Amanda Silver’s original screenplay inside out, introducing a mystery element to its antagonist’s motives and imbuing the eerie saga with sensibilities that threaten to blossom into delightfully lurid camp. Unfortunately, the piece ends up laid low by a climax that peters out by taking itself too seriously, but the film’s totality is still made worthwhile by its central performances.
Penned by Micah Bloomberg, the 2025 version opens with a harrowing flashback of a young blonde girl watching a housefire ravage a family, before the movie hard-cuts to two blonde adults in the modern day, racking focus between them but obscuring the exact connection between past and present. Unlike the original, which had its inciting incident take place during the story’s telling, Garza Cervera’s version plants the seeds for a much deeper connection between the desperate au pair Polly (Maika Monroe) and the pregnant corporate lawyer whose pro bono help she seeks for a landlord dispute, Caitlyn Morales (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Polly, who drops hints about her past work raising children, harbors a discomforting, subdued melancholy beneath her personable demeanor, which tipping off viewers to the fact that her intentions may not be all that they seem.
Months later, after Caitlyn has given birth to her second child, a seemingly chance encounter at a farmer’s market leads to her hiring Polly as a nanny. Polly is charged with caring for Caitlyn’s new baby, Josie, and her ten-year-old daughter Emma (Mileiah Vega), as the husband Miguel (Raúl Castillo) is distracted with various meetings. Polly seems like the perfect fit, firmly on the same page as Caitlyn when it comes to her distinctly modern parenting idiosyncrasies about trans fat and the likes. In fact, she’s too good to be true — a fantasy that slowly unravels in ways that make Caitlyn question her sanity.
As in Hanson’s original, the camera makes us privy to the various methods by which Polly subtly gaslights Caitlyn, exerting an increasing amount of control as she worms her way into her life (and her sleek modernist home) while earning Emma and Miguel’s trust. The major difference, however, is that the “why” of it all is something we’re left to unravel alongside Caitlyn, as well her bougie best friend Stewart (Martin Starr) who tries to protect her.
This simmering plot is made all the more magnetic by a brand-new queer subtext. On one hand, Polly tries to lure Caitlyn’s gaze, making her wonder if she’s happy in her heterosexual marriage; both women are out of the closet, but the target in turn becomes Caitlyn’s relatively traditional domesticity. On the other hand, and in tandem with the aforementioned advances, Polly also leads Caitlyn to believe she might be having inappropriate conversations — or something more sinister — with her eldest daughter, who boldly expresses burgeoning questions about her gender and sexuality, thus inducing conservative fears of LGBTQ predation (a similarly conservative fear of Black men as predators was a key point in the original). This makes for a wildly alluring and distinctly charged flip to the original story, and helps induce more subtle horrors for Caitlyn; she’s left to interpret things, rather than discover them, sending her tumbling into a grey area of uncertainty.
Winstead’s overly cautious mother fights to maintain the lavish façade she’s created with her husband — which plays into themes of how wealth protects people, granting the destitute Polly an empathetic class position even before we know her story. Until that point, Monroe carries her character with a festering sadness, making Polly all the more interesting to watch as she subtly manipulates Caitlyn from the shadows.
Also, it must be said that Vega turns in remarkable work as a bitter adolescent who doesn’t receive the attention she wants (or needs) from her mother at a time in her life when she most needs it. It’s a performance that might bring to mind a young Jenna Ortega. The cast is phenomenal, and Garza Cervera (thanks to Jo Willems’ focused cinematography) captures them through refractions and reflections throughout the setting’s glass exteriors, making them feel discombobulated in service of crafting psychological tension and a suitably gloomy atmosphere.
With all these pieces in play, the result ought to be a surefire hit, but there’s also a hesitancy to “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” that prevents it from going full-tilt. The fears with which it toys are, eventually, dropped onto the premise in the form of enormous reveals expressed not through action, but thuddingly literal dialogue. Although Winstead and Monroe are immensely capable at making exposition intriguing, the nature of the film’s final act lets the air out at least a little (despite plentiful bloodshed), leading to a conclusion that cuts off right as things begin to escalate. It’s a fantastic build without much by way of release — whether delicious or cathartic — which can’t help but point toward creative hesitancy.
The film’s various social themes are serious, or important, or insert-your-own-buzzy-label-here. But for the most part, they fuel a pulpy melodrama about “a woman gone mad” (i.e. a woman made to question her sanity). This premise certainly walks a retrograde line, but it ends up pulled from the brink — not by thoughtful subversion or some unique formalism from a more enlightened perspective, but rather by pumping the brakes and explaining the story’s most unpleasant aspects in words. It’s the morally correct view on the vicious immoralities the story reveals. But gosh, the movie’s final act is just no fun to watch, despite its promising operatic delights.
