When the Bough Breaks

Up until near the end this film held my attention. There's plenty of suspense. Set in Houston, the story involves a hotshot young investigator named Audrey Macleah (Ally Walker) assigned to assist police Captain Swaggert (Martin Sheen) in a grisly case of severed hands.

The plot plays out in segments corresponding to dates, beginning on July 4th and spans a period of about two weeks. During this time, Macleah interviews a young boy in a mental ward, chases a prospective child killer, and ends up in a spooky old house that contains some spooky surprises. This thriller genre film sports foreboding background sounds and music to enhance the scary visuals.

Unfortunately, the ending collapses into a pile of unresolved issues and an incoherent resolution that left me confused. It's like the scriptwriter knew exactly where he wanted to take the story, but then near the end got his pages all mixed up, or lost, and used pages from another script to complete this one. Baffling.

The casting and performance of Walker is also baffling. She comes across as jittery and abrasive, in marked contrast to Sheen who gives a convincingly realistic performance. But maybe Walker's problem relates more to the Director's style. The film exhibits good production design and color cinematography. Amplified sound effects convey an appropriate immediacy to scenes.

Despite the script's loose ends and poor ending, "When The Bough Breaks" is still worth a one-time watch due to superb suspense through most of the film.

Turn of the light. Sit alone. Drink a beer. Feel alone !. This movie will bring you down. This one is a thriller.

The end is not so good but in the right atmosphere this movie will not let you slip away from the tense story. "Silence of the lambs" is the best description I can give, though it never reaches this point of excellence.

In low budget thrillers we generally don't expect to find genuine shock and depth of characterization. But this film has both. What is particularly surprising is the level of complexity suggested in Ally Walker's portrayal of the lead character Audrey McLeah. The film's script in and of itself doesn't sufficiently account for the undercurrents of alienation and fear that we glimpse in the Audrey character. However, Ally Walker, in what was a fairly early role in her career, manages to convey pain through restraint. It's remarkable work in a vehicle that doesn't necessarily require it.

The film even has some powerful poetic touches such as the scars on Audrey's back, scars that resonate all the more powerfully because they appear in one scene and then vanish while the viewer continues to wonder about their origins and about the many kinds of scars that are evident in the film. Here once again Ally Walker demonstrates an impressive skill for sensitive understatement.

Don't believe the reviews that say there are many unanswered questions or plot holes. Those people obviously weren't paying attention. Everything comes together at the end. Pay special attention to the medical records that the investigator finds and reads at the closed hospital. What she reads explains everything. Also, listen to the conversation with the housekeeper. That provides the motive for the doctor/father. It's worth watching. Not Oscar worthy, but good investigative work that solves the case.

When the Bough Breaks sets an all-time record for unresolved loose ends: scars on the back, birth defects, numbers on the palms, role of the full-time ice cream clown, and on and on. Of course, there are suggestions of untold stories that parallel and bisect the story. But there's enough here to feed a decade-long TV series. (Oops. There goes my chance to make a killing on the spin-offs.)

There are signs of a heart beat in the characters of Audrey Macleah and Jordan/Jenny--but the pulse is weak.