I went to see 'Shakespeare In Love' because it won the Oscar for Best Picture. I didn't like it (simply not my cup of tea), but I just loved Gwyneth Paltrow. One of the most wonderful performances of the decade. Then I saw 'Great Expectations', another delightful performance, and right now she's one of my favorite actresses. What do you do when someone's your fave actress? You scan their filmography looking for other movies to watch. I ran through Paltrow's list on IMDb and came across 'Hush'. The 4.5 average rating didn't look too promising. Then my sis also told me she thought this movie was awful, but I decided to rent it anyway.
The movie tells the story about Helen, Jackson and his mother Martha. Helen gets pregnant, they marry and go live with Martha in her giant house. Martha's very possessive over Jackson. More and more it becomes clear Martha's not the nice mother-in-law she appeared to be. She's spreading lies between the two lovers and things get worse. This all leads to a, looking back on it, predictable sequence of scenes.
But... there's Jessica Lange. She plays Martha. She really got on my nerves. Actually, when the movie was over I completely hated her. She does a fantastic acting performance. I really wanted to strangle her sometimes. Her character that is. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a quite vulnerable and likable young woman. That combined with the evil Lange caused this movie to be suspenseful for me. Really. It was predictable, but it was the kinda movie where we (I anyway) so want the heroine to win over the evil character. It is not the best movie ever made, but I was really sucked into it, especially because of Lange's perfect portrayal of an utter bitch.
So I can't believe why this movie only got 4.5 out of 10 here on IMDb. I overall liked it and grade it much higher:
8 / 10