THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (Curtis Hanson, 1992) is a contemporary thriller framed by a reassuring parable. At the start, yuppie housewife Claire (Annabella Sciorra) is scared by the sudden appearance at her kitchen window of a hooded, black intruder. Taken in hand by Michael (Matt Mc-Coy), the Sensitive New Age Guy of the house, the intruder turns out to be Solomon (Ernie Hudson), a mentally disabled person sent by the “Better Day” association to do helpful carpentry chores for the family. Solomon figures as the innocent, non-threatening Other of the story; Claire and Michael eventually learn to overcome their residual doubts and prejudices and, in the film's final moments, welcome him in as a nurturing and nurtured member of their happy family.

The more central intruder is the mirror opposite of Solomon in virtually every conceivable way. Peyton (Rebecca De Mornay) is white, female, a cultured bourgeois like Claire and Michael. Whereas Solomon's physical contact with the children of the household is cautiously restricted, Peyton is entrusted with unlimited access: she is to be their live-in nanny for the months that Claire builds an elaborate, backyard greenhouse. Where the parents are quick to suspect Solomon of grave misconduct, they realise almost too late that the real villain of the piece is in fact Peyton, seeking revenge for both the husband and child she lost as a result of legal action encouraged by Claire.

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE proposes, in short, a social and moral lesson in how to distinguish truly threatening outsiders from only seemingly threatening ones.