Hollywood loves to take something that worked once and remake it for a new generation.
Specific case – The hand that shakes the cradlean updated version of the 1992 psychological thriller about a new mother who hires a nanny who has a secret connection to the mother, as well as a dark motive.
The film was a box office hit at the time and was generally well received by critics as well.
The plot is certainly salacious, so it’s no wonder it’s been given another go. But is it still worth streaming? Hulu?
Watch with us he says yes, and here’s why.
Everyone loves a good thriller. From 1960’s Psycho to 2024’s Conclave, thrillers have been around for decades and will always find an appreciative audience. The genre has suffered a bit of a slump lately, with fewer thrillers released in theaters than in its heyday in the 90s. That decade was certainly a high (…)
The basic plot is the same, but also completely different
The plot of 1992 The hand that shakes the cradle is similar to the 2025 remake, but they differ in crucial ways. Years 1992 crib initially surrounds the suicide death of a gynecologist. When he sexually assaults a pregnant woman named Claire (Annabella Sciorra), she goes to the police and more women sign up. The doctor commits suicide, leaving his pregnant wife a widow. Years later, his widowed wife poses as a nanny for Claire, intent on revenge.
2025 crib has the bones of the original as it follows a new mother who hires a nanny who seems to have increasingly sinister intentions for the mother and her baby. But the backstory that brings the two women together is completely different, and there’s no suicidal obstetrician perverted husband involved. This allows the film to have a completely new take on the material.
The new cast is fresh and fantastic
While the original film features great performances from Annabella Sciorra as Claire and, in particular, formed De Mornaay as the discovered nanny, Mrs. Mott, the new one crib has a new cast of talented actresses. Instead of De Mornay as Mrs. Mott, we now have the scream queen Maika Monroe like Polly Murphy, but this film allows her to do something a little different, while she usually plays the ultimate girl, this time she gets to be the torturer.
Claire Bartel’s replacement is Caitlyn Morales, played by Birds of prey i Ashoka actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead. As Caitlyn, Winstead makes it clear through the physicality of her performance that she harbors a secret, which makes her reactions to Polly’s presence so intense. We won’t give away any spoilers, but the secret Caitlyn keeps, which brings the two women together more than the original, eventually takes its toll, and Winstead does a fantastic job of evoking that unspoken emotion.
The remake deftly explores contemporary anxieties
One crucial thing that sets the original apart crib it’s that very little background check was done when Mrs. Mott was hired, which is how her past and connections to Claire were able to go unnoticed. But now with social media and the internet, you might wonder how the same mistake could happen a second time. Well, snow-crib means that even with all the information at our disposal, people can still evade the truth.
Ultimately, people are more trusting when they need something from the other person, and they are also more willing to remove red flags. Think how easy it is to assume different identities and scam people in the age of social media and dating apps, I’ve never heard of Tinder scammer? So it makes sense as the snow plot-crib it unfolds despite the confident suburbanism of the 90s, discarded in favor of the hypervigilant 2020s. Although we know so much more, we somehow manage to know even less.
She has something interesting to say about nannying and motherhood
As much as The hand that shakes the cradle it’s about deception and redemption, it’s also very much about motherhood. In fact, the name of the film comes from a poem of the same name by William Ross Wallace, which talks about the divinity of motherhood. And yet, mothers are treated very differently from something divine, which is evidenced in director Michelle Garza Cervera’s movie At one point, Caitlyn’s husband, Miguel (Raul Castillo), dismisses her fears of Polly as postpartum depression.
At the same time, the film seems to comment on the way parents decide very quickly to leave their children to a stranger instead of taking on the challenges themselves, which is not always the fault of the parents, but of the social and financial conditions that can force them to work and be away from home. Either way, the underlying message of the film seems to be that nannying and parenting are both heavy handed and underrated. With his dam The hand that rocks the cradle, Cervera does a great job of creating something new from something old.