One
couple has found happiness.
Another’s coming for what they’ve left behind.
1995 - 99 minutes
Hot
Hollywood favorite Daryl Hannah (Grumpy Old Men) leads an all-star cast in The
Tie That Binds – the latest spellbinding thriller from the producers of The
Hand that Rocks the Cradle!
When a childless couple (Moira Kelly – With Honors and Vincent Spano
– Alive) adopts an abandoned little girl, they discover a happiness they have
never known before.
But their new family is violently shattered when the girl’s natural
parents – a dangerous pair of outlaws (Hannah, and Keith Carradine – Andre)
reappear to claim what’s theirs!
It’s heart-stopping thrills as one couple is forced to fight for their
lives – against another who will stop at nothing to take their daughter back!
Directed
by screenwriter Wesley Strick (TRUE BELIEVER, FINAL ANALYSIS), THE TIE THAT
BINDS is an efficient, well-acted thriller predicated on one of the most
powerful of bourgeois fears about adoption: that an adopted child might have
"bad blood."
Malevolent modern
day hippies Leann (Daryl Hannah) and John Netherwood (Keith Carradine) roam
America with their little girl Janie (Julia Devin) in tow, terrorizing the
middle class through robbery, vandalism and murder. But they're caught while
burgling the home of an old couple, and while wounded John and scary soul-mate
Leann manage to get away, the police take Janie into custody.
Aided by adoption
agency case worker Maggie (Jennie Gago), struggling architect Russell Clifton
(Vincent Spano) and his photographer wife Dana (Moira Kelly) welcome the
traumatized six-year-old into their home. Though intelligent and charming,
Janie's behavior is disturbing: She hides in closets, cuts herself, steals food
and draws monstrous pictures of the "Tooth Fairy," of whom she's
terrified. Russell and Dana believe that with love she'll forget her past,
though they secretly worry about what that past might involve. Meanwhile, the
Netherwoods begin planning to reclaim their child. Leann picks up the hapless
policeman who rescued Janie, and John tortures the name of the adoption agency
where Janie was placed out of the man before slitting his throat. They then
force Maggie to tell them about the Cliftons, and murder her as well.
Meanwhile, Russell
and Dana have done some amateur sleuthing, and have begun to get an idea what
Janie's real parents are like. Leann tries to snatch Janie from school, and the
Cliftons go into hiding. The Netherwoods track down the Clifton's friends, the
Chandlers, and threatens to hurt their newborn: Desperate new mother Lisa Marie
(Cynda Williams) reveals the location of the Cliftons' hiding place, a
half-built model home Russell designed. Russell and Dana fight the murderous
couple to the death, and return home with Janie.
Much meaner than
the polished lullaby thriller, THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, this good
family-bad family chiller (which plays on middle-class fears of the underclass
with more ferocity than insight) packs a really nasty punch, primarily because
of the feral performances of Carradine and Hannah. Carradine gives white trash
patriarch John Netherwood a demonic presence that's as compelling as it is
terrifying, and vacant doll Hannah--in her suede vest and faintly fetishistic
jewelry--looks eerily like a high-fashion Manson girl. The moment when she
tenderly positions her thumb over the soft spot on a newborn's head, smiling
tenderly as she makes it clear that if she doesn't get the information she wants
she's going to push--is diabolically conceived and flawlessly played.
Lushly
photographed and art directed, THE TIE THAT BINDS has aspirations to being a
real-life fairy tale--the Netherwoods are the flesh-and-blood embodiments of the
monsters under the bed that terrify small children--and comes surprisingly close
to pulling it off. Though it's classic direct-to-video material, the film's
relatively high profile cast earned it a token theatrical release. It performed
badly, probably because it was too nasty for mainstream audiences and a bit
polished for down-and-dirty crazed killer buffs. (Graphic violence; extreme
profanity, adult situations.)
