ordinarily and i love these stranger within thriller . some good example be fatal attraction and single white female and and audition . do well and they can be a lot of fun and and worth an hour or two of solid shock and scare . of course and the opposite can be true represent do poorly and they can be tedious and stupid . the hand that rock the cradle be one of the latter . the bartels and claire ( annabella sciorra ) and michael ( matt mccoy ) be welcome another member to their family . but busy claire be persuade by michael to hire a nanny . one day and a woman name peyton flanders ( rebecca demornay ) show up and and because she seem perfect and the bartels hire her . of course and once she show up and their idyllic life be slowly unraveling . this film suffers from a plethora of problem and but the big one be the handling of the villain . peyton be never believable . part of this have to do with how she write and and how she act . the thing that she do that be suppose to put u on edge be so contrived that theyre laughable . de mornay doesn not help much . she portray peyton a two different people . while it true she suppose to be the perfect nanny while hide her psychotic tendency and de mornay performance create a divide between the two facet of her character . the other actor be good and however . annabella sciorrra be terrific a the asthmatic claire . sciorra be very natural in the role and but unfortunately and the script let her down . matt mccoy be almost invisible . however and julianne moore be delightful a claire friend marlene . moore be a firecracker and but unfortunately she only on screen for a total of five minute . curtis hanson be a good director and but you wouldn not know it from watch this dud . the film have a few decent shock and but it poorly pace and and the climax and while generate some tension and be actually kind of laughable . that be say and he work with a script that at best and could charitably be call pathetic . trust me and when it come to nanny and stick with fran drescher . this one should have go to the direct to video bin .