Hide and Seek

Producer - Barry Josephson

Director – John Polson

Certificate 15

Distributer – 20th Century Fox

Release Date – 25/2/2005 

‘Hide and seek’ is a fantastic and disturbing psychological thriller produced by Barry Josephson based around the idea of split personalities. There is constant tension in this film which will keep you glued until the end.

When David (Robert De Niro) discovers his wife’s dead body in a bathtub after an apparent suicide attempt, he decides to move to upstate New York with his daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning).

Emily soon makes a friend called Charlie who only she can see. After awaking from an emotional dream about his cheating wife, David discovers a bath full of blood, shocked, he pulls out his dead cat and turns to see Emily stood behind him who insists that Charlie is responsible.

When David becomes attracted to a woman named Elizabeth (Elizabeth Shue) he starts to spend a lot of time with her, which causes Emily to act stranger and darker. Elizabeth distracts Emily whilst she playing a game of hide and seek with Charlie and asks if she can play, she walks over to Emily’s wardrobe and is pushed out of the 2^nd floor window and dies.

The police are called out and are eager to talk to Emily. Her father asks who did this and Emily replies, Charlie and says that he has just left. David rushes out of the house to find his neighbour stood outside leading him to believe that the neighbour is Charlie, this causes David to act violently towards him and then rushes back inside to his study.

David finds his diary that he has been writing in since Emily befriended Charlie just to discover that the pages are blank, he starts to have flash backs of the events that have occurred and he shockingly realises that he is Charlie. David spins around to see Emily stood there and its clear Charlie has taken over her dad.

Katharine, a family friend (Famke Janssen) arrives at the house just in time to save Emily from Charlie; Katharine sadly ends up killing Charlie and takes Emily to live with her.

The end scene is of Emily drawing a picture before leaving for school. The picture is of a house, a sun and her stood outside with a smile on her face, giving the impression that she is happy, but as the camera zooms out you see that she has drawn an extra head on herself with a sinister look about it, which gives the impression that Emily also has a split personality like her father.

So, how does this film create tension and suspense? The most obvious thing to point out is that the audience is unaware of who Charlie is, this engages them and creates this feeling of suspense. There are lots of jumpy moments alongside creepy music, dark rooms and deaths.

If this awesome plot wasn’t enough to make you want to watch this fast paced, gripping film, then I must say that the acting alongside the direction is flawless. This is certainly a film worth seeing.

by Michaela Bulfin