DAKOTA > FILMS > HIDE AND SEEK

» Movie Details
Release Date: January 28th, 2005
Director: John Polson
Writer: Ari Schlossberg
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Robert De Niro, Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan Baker, Robert John Burke, Alicia Harding, Amy Irving, Melissa Leo, James McCaffrey
Tag Line: Come out come out whatever you are | If you want to know the secret, you have to play the game
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Runtime: 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for frightening sequences and violence
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Box Office: $51,097,664 (US total)
DVD Release: July 5th, 2005
Official Website: Hide and Seek
Trailer: Check here
Quotes: Check here

» Synopsis
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

That command is familiar to everyone who has played the children's game, Hide and Seek. The words and game take us back to an innocent, carefree time in our lives, where the simple goal was to find hiding playmates. Many children could even enjoy a spirited game with imaginary friends.

But then, imaginary friends can sometimes seem so real...

For young Emily Callaway, her games of Hide and Seek with an imaginary friend named Charlie have become anything but simple and innocent. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a series of increasingly nightmarish acts that even her father David cannot stop. Who – or what – is Charlie? David wonders. How can an “imaginary” entity have this kind of hold on her? Maybe Charlie is not imaginary at all, but instead a flesh-and-blood, malevolent presence?

Academy Award winner Robert De Niro stars as David Callaway, a troubled father and widower in the suspense-thriller HIDE AND SEEK, and Dakota Fanning portrays his young daughter Emily, who is hiding an incredible secret. As the story opens, Callaway's wife Alison (Amy Irving) dies suddenly, traumatizing Emily. Father and daughter move to Upstate New York to distance Emily from the memories of her life in Manhattan with her mother. Soon thereafter, Emily develops a friendship with Charlie. At first, David sees Charlie as a positive way for Emily to express herself, but a series of terrifying acts lead him to imagine the unimaginable: Charlie may actually be real...and if so, he must be stopped.

more photos?

» Dakota on the Movie
"No. I read it and when I saw it, I was scared. I was like, “I think I'm going to go downstairs where everybody else is.” But it was an awesome script and I wanted to do it immediately." [About reading the script]

"I was scared when I saw it. I was like screaming. Elisabeth [Shue] and I saw it together and we were screaming together (laughing)." [About watching the movie]

» Dakota's Reviews
" One of the most actively employed child actors in the movie business and one of the most gifted, Miss Fanning has both chops and a preternaturally intense screen presence. Even when you don't believe the setup, you tend to buy what she is selling."
- by Manohla Dargis / January 28, 2005 / The New York Times {+More}

" If there's any a bright spot in this completely ineffective film, it's Fanning, who is so far removed from the cutesy image that's dangerously pigeonholed her young career. Here, her strung-out look and big wide-eyed gazes provide a very convincing look into the soul of a damaged girl."
- by David Levine/ Film Critic{+More}

" Fanning keeps us emotionally connected to the movie, even as the ending goes on too long and the various supporting characters show up with "Hi, I'll be your next victim" all but stamped across their foreheads."
- by Eleanor Ringel Gillespie/ Atlanta Journal-Constitution {+More}

» Links
. IMDB Hide and Seek Page

» Links
. IMDB Nine Lives Page

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