Hide and Seek (2005 film)
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| Hide and Seek | |
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| Directed by | John Polson |
| Produced by | Barry Josephson |
| Written by | Ari Schlossberg |
| Starring | Robert De Niro Dakota Fanning Famke Janssen Elizabeth Shue Amy Irving Dylan Baker |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | January 28, 2005 |
| Running time | 101 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$30,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Hide and Seek is a 2005 film, directed by John Polson and starring Robert De Niro, Famke Janssen and Dakota Fanning. The film opened in the United States in January 2005 and was top of the box office. It did not reach the same level of critical success; the majority of the mixed reviews it received were negative. The performances of the actors were highly praised however.
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[edit] Plot
- Tagline: Come out come out whatever you are.
After the suicide of his wife, David Callaway discovers that his nine-year-old daughter Emily behaves strangely as she finds solace in her creepy imaginary friend who wants to be called 'Charlie'. The movie proceeds with increasingly disturbing events being perpetuated by 'Charlie' with Emily's help.
The twist occurs when, late in the movie, David discovers that he is suffering from multiple personality disorder. David realizes that Charlie is not imaginary at all, but that in fact, he is Charlie. David also discovers that under his Charlie personality, he killed his wife and then made it appear to be a suicide. David's personality then becomes fully subsumed by the increasingly violent Charlie. Emily calls Katherine, a family friend, for assistance and Katherine arrives in time to rescue Emily. Katherine kills David/Charlie in the cave where Emily first met 'Charlie'. Emily then gets adopted by Katherine.
[edit] Endings
This film also has different endings, one of which was used domestically, and another in select theatres and foreign markets, though the main twist remains the same.
- Preparing for school while living a new life with Katherine, Emily's drawing at the end suggests everything is fine. The only variation between this and the domestic theatrical ending is that the film cuts back to the previous shot of the drawing, before Emily has added the other head, despite the second head being visible in the previous shot. Emily is also seen coloring the grass over with a green marker, but because of the replacing of the double-head picture shot with a previous shot having a single head, the grass was also undrawn, creating continuity issues.
- Emily is shown seemingly in a new apartment bedroom, and Katherine's actions mirror that of her mother's at the beginning of the film. She reassures her love to Emily and begins to leave the room. Emily asks Katherine to leave the door open, but Katherine insists she cannot. As the door shuts, a protected window is visible on the door. The next cut is of Katherine locking the door from the outside, revealing this assumed apartment bedroom is actually a hospital room in a children's psychiatric ward. Katherine suggests to her assisting doctor that she is going to take Emily home with her the next day to start a new life. Emily gets out of bed and does a Hide and Seek countdown. She nears the closet, opens, and smiles at her own reflection, suggesting, like David, she too has a split personality due to trauma. Worth noting is that when Katherine enters the room, the shot of the door is a bedroom door, without the protected window. When the door is shown closing, it's a different door with a glass window, which creates continuity issues.
According to the commentary, the directors, screenwriters, and producers chose the ending they did for the default DVD and domestic release because it gave the audience a relief at the end of the film. They felt the hospital room endings were too dark and suggested that Emily is being punished for things she did not do. After the Emily character is basically thrown into terror for the last 45 minutes of the film, they felt it was time to give her an emotional break, and the happy ending was chosen. Although the double-head suggests future drama or issues, it's most likely not of a frightening severity. She will maintain a very strong degree of stability and a happy life.
[edit] Box office
- US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 51,100,486
- + Other International Takings: $71,544,334
- = Gross Worldwide Takings: $122,644,820
[edit] See also
[edit] Trivia
- When Elizabeth gives Emily the pile of books, one of the books is Charlotte's Web. Dakota Fanning would later go on to play the role of Fern in the Film adaption of Charlotte's Web.
- AnnaSophia Robb tried out for the role of Emily Callaway and was deeply considered but the part was given to Dakota Fanning.
- David has several noticeable similarities to Norman Bates of the Psycho series of films. Both characters start out as protagonists of their respective films, both wind up battling off-camera antagonists, both eventually find out that they themselves are the antagonists, and both eventually succumb to their psychotic counterparts.
- The final twist is extremely similar to the one at the end of the film Secret Window, where the protagonist is battling against a threatening and murdering entity only to discover at the end that he was the murderer the whole time, at that point he gives into his second personality and becomes the antagonist for the final scenes.
- The cancelled book by O.J. Simpson, If I Did It, contains a section where Simpson explains how he claims the murders would have taken place, putting the reader through the eyes of someone named "Charlie". Simpson puts himself into the story only as the person who disarms "Charlie" of the murder weapon.
