Hide and Seek

Review by Richard Lee

Twentieth Century Fox / 2005 / 101 Minutes / Rated R

Street Date: July 5, 2005 
Specifications:
-DVD-Video
-DVD-9
-Region 1 

Aspect Ratio:
-2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
 
Audio:
-English 5.1 DTS
-English 5.1 Dolby Surround
-French Dolby Surround
-Spanish Dolby Surround
-Feature Commentary 

Subtitles:
-English
-Spanish
-None 

Disc Menu:
-Theatrical Version
-Alternate Versions:
-1-“Happy Drawing”
-2-“Life with Katherine”
-3-“One Final Game”
-4-“Emily’s Fate” 

Main Menu:
-Play Movie
-Scene Selection
-Language Selection
-Special Features
-Disc Menu 
Special Features:
-Feature Commentary by Director John Polson, Editor Jeffrey Ford, and Screenwriter Ari Schlossberg
-Alternate Endings
-Deleted Scenes
-The Making Of Hide And Seek
-Previs Sequences

*Spoiler Alert – Do not view any of the Special Features before watching the movie if you want to be surprised by the “twist” ending. 
Robert DeNiro plays David Callaway, a New York City psychologist whose wife, played by Amy Irving, commits suicide and plunges their poor daughter Emily, played by up-and-coming child actor Dakota Fanning, into a near catatonic state. Fearing for his daughter’s mental stability, he uproots to upstate New York in the hopes that the creepy remote wooded area will facilitate her road to recovery. Emily, in the meantime, displaces her traumatized psyche by conjuring up an “imaginary” friend named Charlie, who may or may not be wreaking havoc in the house and on the local townsfolk. 
DeNiro, still in “Godsend” mode, has distanced himself quite substantially from the classic mobster roles he portrayed in The Godfather and Martin Scorsese-directed movies. Whether you believe that’s a good or bad thing depends on how great you feel those earlier movies are. As concerned father, David Callaway, DeNiro’s performance is pretty much subdued here making way for young Dakota to steal the picture with her convincing turn as his seemingly troubled daughter. Introduced to movie and TV audiences with her memorable performances in “I Am Sam” and “Steven Spielberg’s Taken”, usually blonde Dakota sports a brunette look here and when she speaks of her imaginary friend Charlie, we are reminded of the little boy in The Shining; only here she doesn’t speak to her finger in a froggy voice. We also get good supporting work from Elizabeth Shue as a love interest for DeNiro, Famke Janssen as a former student turned colleague of DeNiro’s character, Dylan Baker as the town sheriff, and Robert John Burke as the spooky neighbor. 
As thrillers go, this one is basically by the numbers with suspicions directed at characters who fit the shady demeanor only to have us be surprised by their demise or some nifty plot twist late in the game. With everything coming out of Hollywood being derivative of something else that came before it, one has to wonder when movie makers will run out of ideas on who the identity of the killer is. We now go into a ghost story pretty much knowing “they’re already dead!” or into a murder mystery assuming the killer is the one you’d least suspect. I will say this much for “Hide and Seek”; excluding supernatural forces and aliens, the movie’s resolution makes the most sense and is therefore the most believable. 

Picture Quality: 
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, the picture maintains a softly detailed look throughout. I did detect some graininess in outdoor scenes particularly in the gray-lit skies. No bright and vibrant colors to be found here; the whole movie is steeped in dark and drab hues, mainly greens, browns, and grays. I’m sure this was the filmmakers’ intent for a picture of this genre; after all, they weren’t making “The Cat in the Hat”, another Dakota Fanning movie by the way. The whole mood of the look makes it seem as if there wasn’t one sunny day during the whole shoot. Plenty of darkly-lit and nighttime scenes abound providing many black tones and shadows which on the whole were well-authored; a fitting look for a psychological thriller. 

Audio Quality: 
Thankfully a DTS track is included which optimizes the sonic experience when the movie needs it most – namely, scenes of flashbacks or unexpected shocks; the surrounds and the LFE channel come alive at these times. Other than that, the surrounds are not very active except for a chirping bird here and there. John Ottman’s music score is also very quiet and only seems to crescendo when the shocks are needed. The longest sustained pieces of orchestration occur over the credits; the opening credits which is during an aerial tracking shot of the Callaways’ car again reminds me of the opening credits of “The Shining”. Dialogue is always clear and is usually not in competition with the other channels when the characters are speaking. 

Special Features: 
Unique to this DVD is a menu that starts up before the main menu. It gives the viewer the choice of selecting the theatrical version of the movie or one of four alternate versions with different endings which are substituted for the theatrical version’s ending via seamless branching. The alternate versions are also encoded with whatever audio you may have selected be it DD or DTS. 
A feature commentary by director John Polson, editor Jeffrey Ford, and screenwriter Ari Shlossberg is provided giving insight into their script changes and decisions regarding visuals to maximize the impact of the storytelling. Personally, I would have liked a commentary with DeNiro and Fanning being that this movie is such a one on one between their two characters. 
Alternate Endings provides the viewer with the option of seeing the four different endings by themselves with or without the filmmakers’ commentary. Those who have not seen the movie – skip to the end of this paragraph. “Happy Drawing” is much like the ending used in the theatrical version, only Emily’s drawing of herself has only one head instead of two. “Life With Katherine” has Emily being tucked into bed by Katherine who appears to have adopted her. Emily then sneaks out of bed and begins playing hide and seek; goes to the closet and says “There you are!” and stares ominously at her own reflection. “One Final Game” is much like the second, only instead of Katherine’s home, Emily is locked up in an institution. “Emily’s Fate” plays out that she is institutionalized but it ends before she gets out of bed to play hide and seek. 

Deleted Scenes offers fourteen scenes which mainly flesh out character development, particularly between DeNiro’s and Fanning’s characters. All can be viewed with or without filmmaker commentary. Most were deleted for pacing concerns but the date between Elizabeth Shue and DiNiro’s characters and subsequently at home with Dakota and the babysitter are scenes which would have been nice left in the final cut. 

The Making of Hide and Seek is a short featurette with cast and crew interviews except for DeNiro. Mainly everyone here is fawning over Fanning and Dakota herself says what an honor it is to work with DeNiro. She’s all of nine years old when they were filming this movie; which R rated movies of DeNiro’s was she permitted to see? Surely, she isn’t basing his career on “Meet The Fockers” and “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle”! 
Lastly, Previs Sequences covers three deleted scenes via filmed elements and storyboarding and how they would have played out. The last one which gives a sort of closure between DeNiro and Fanning’s characters would have been a nice addition had it been left in the final cut.