This Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning Psychological Thriller Is Better Than You Remember

In 2005, the psychological thriller Hide and Seek, starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, hit theaters.

The trailer piqued interest, as Fanning’s character suggested the presence of a nefarious imaginary friend causing all kinds of sinister trouble. What positioned itself as the thrilling film of the year turned into a critically derided affair. Now, two decades later, it’s time to look back and ask the question: Was everyone too harsh on Hide and Seek? 

What is ‘Hide and Seek’ about?

After the death of his wife, psychologist Dr. David Callaway (Robert De Niro) moves to upstate New York with his young daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning). David notices that Emily has made a new imaginary friend named Charlie. At first, he doesn’t think too much of it and treats it as something that most children do, even more so after the trauma Emily experienced in losing her mother. Disturbing occurrences soon follow, which Emily claims is Charlie’s fault.

David and family friend Dr. Kate Carson (Famke Janssen) suspect that Emily is lashing out, so they encourage her to make “real” friends. However, David starts to believe that Charlie might actually be a real person – and not an imaginary friend.

The movie featured five different endings

If you haven’t watched Hide and Seek yet after 20 years, look away now because a major spoiler is about to be dropped like a bomb… Still here? Okay, let’s continue. The big reveal in Hide and Seek is that David is Charlie. David experiences dissociative identity disorder, and Charlie was created by him to deal with his rage. In the third act, David/Charlie is killed by Kate, making Emily an orphan. However, Hide and Seek received five different endings. 

In the US theatrical cut, Emily is now under the care of Kate. She draws a picture of herself and Kate, but when the camera cuts back to the picture, Emily has two heads, suggesting she also has the same dissociative identity disorder as her father. Another version of this ending showcases Emily drawing just one head. 

The international theatrical cut sees Kate leaving Emily in a room, but when Kate exits and closes the door, it’s clear that Emily is now in a psychiatric ward. There are two other versions of this ending: One, where everything happens as before, but Emily plays a game of hide and seek with herself. And the second features Kate exiting the room, but the camera shows that Emily is in a regular house with her and not a psychiatric ward.

Why the film didn’t click with critics and audiences in 2005

Hide and Seek seemed like the perfect treat for the same kind of people who enjoyed The Sixth Sense – it was an M. Night Shyamalan movie not made by Shyamalan. Perhaps that was part of the problem since it required a director of Shyamalan’s caliber and deftness to pull off its mind-blowing twist. That isn’t to say that director John Polson did an awful job here, but he telegraphed the big reveal and relied on too many thriller tropes for comfort. Plus, the controversial depiction of dissociative identity disorder didn’t go down too well either. 

In the end, Polson’s choices annoyed the majority of reviewers and the audience, who had seen it all in the years prior. One could argue that Hide and Seek‘s greatest sin is that it was released in an era jam-packed with similar movies and failed to stand out for its originality. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a brutal 13% critical rating and 50% audience score. Sure, Hide and Seek has its faults, but it’s a harsh reflection of a tidy if not predictable psychological thriller.

In Dread Central‘s retrospective piece, Matthew Rozsa acknowledged that while the film has its flaws and its depiction of dissociative identity disorder might irritate people, it certainly doesn’t deserve its extremely low Rotten Tomatoes score. “I hope to one day live in a world where both Hide and Seek is ranked alongside the best works of De Niro and Fanning, and characters with DID and other neurological differences are regularly shown in pop culture as three-dimensional protagonists instead of mere ciphers for villainousness and deviance,” Rozsa wrote.

If ‘Hide and Seek’ was released in the streaming era, it would have been a massive hit

By no means was Hide and Seek a box office flop. It made over $120 million from a $25 million budget, ensuring all studio executives could make snow angels in the piles of money spread out across 20th Century Fox. That said, it isn’t too hard to imagine a film like this going straight to a streaming service like Netflix or Prime Video in the modern era and finding success there. 

It’s the type of movie that promotes itself through its intrigue and reaches an instant audience. More importantly, streaming viewers tend to forgive a film’s flaws for two main reasons: It’s bundled in with the subscription cost and people don’t need to take out a second mortgage to go to the theater to watch it. There’s no expectation for it to be a major blockbuster nor perfect, just as long as it entertains.

And here’s the funny thing: Hide and Seek has already started to be reassessed after its addition to streaming platforms. Newer viewers have asked why it received such a harsh reception when it was first released, comparing it positively to other similar films like Split and praising its actors and story. Maybe it’s true what they say about time being the greatest equalizer, and Hide and Seek could still be remembered as one of the most underrated and underappreciated psychological thrillers of the 2000s.