Every Parent S Nightmare
Screenwriter Amanda Silver (box) and director Curtis Hanson exploit the nanny’s powerful but ambiguous position in the household to unnerving effect. Invited to share the Seattle home of the nice young Yuppie couple Claire (Annabella Sciorra) and Michael (Matt McCoy), she is both rival Mommy and-as embodied by the milkily sluttish Rebecca De Mornay-sexual threat. Smelling trouble, Claire’s friend Marlene (Julianne Moore) warns her: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world....