NEUTRON MOM

As Gwyneth Paltrow's evil in-law, Jessica Lange goes ballistic
in the disquieting thriller Hush


Review by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Even in the world of bad movies, there are rules of engagement.
Bad like Showgirls bad can be enjoyable. Bad like Hush (TriStar)
bad is just depressing, a grim chore: When you watch this failed
horror thriller--which has been under studio doctors' care for
some two years, undergoing futile title changes and reshoots--
there's no respite from the odor of flop sweat stinking up the
screen. Worse, that whiff is coming from Gwyneth Paltrow and
Jessica Lange!

As a psycho mommie-in-law dearest, Jessica Lange, unsteadily
directed by newcomer Jonathan Darby, wears a drink in one hand
and a cigarette in the other. (She also wears a crucifix around
her neck--a tired old sign of impending lunacy that has never
looked so cheap or gratuitous.) She's a widowed horse breeder
who presides over a verdant Southern estate, and when her darling
son (Peter Gallagher lite Johnathon Schaech) brings a girl
(Paltrow) home for Christmas, Mom is clearly not right in the
head about it. Pretty soon, Girlfriend becomes accidentally
pregnant (thanks to some diaphragm tampering by Mom--and hey,
isn't that a felony in most states?), the couple marry, and
suffice to say, Mom displays inordinate interest in the breeding
of a human grandson.

I can sort of understand what Paltrow was doing, galumphing
around in maternity wear and worrying about the mental health of
her in-law: She's young and still green; this was shot before
Great Expectations, etc. (Hush is so crudely patched and
repatched, in an I give up! kind of way, that sometimes she's
more pregnant than others, sometimes her hair is more wiglike
than others, sometimes adjacent scenes appear to have been shot
in different countries.) But it's deeply dismaying to see Lange
struggling with Faye Dunaway material, selling out her effective,
trademark bleary earthiness so cheaply and settling instead for
such camp hooey. In one scene meant to spook, the evil mother-in-
law creeps toward the sleeping daughter-in-law, brandishing a
deadly syringe. But the only thing in Hush that's really scary
is the desperation in the air.


Grade: D-

--Lisa Schwarzbaum