Drama

When the Bough Breaks

DramaThriller

A surrogate mom for a couple becomes dangerously obsessed with the soon-to-be father.

Year

2016

Duration

1h 47m

IMDb

5.2

Trailer

Cast

Jon Cassar

Director

Morris Chestnut

John Taylor

Regina Hall

Laura Taylor

Romany Malco

Todd Decker

Michael Kenneth Williams

Roland White

Glenn Morshower

Martin Cooper

Theo Rossi

Mike Mitchell

Jaz Sinclair

Anna Walsh

GiGi Erneta

Dr. Grace Park

Tom Nowicki

Peter Kaye

Denise Gossett

Carol

Janee Michelle

John's Mother

Carrie Lazar

Yoga Instructor

Ariadne Joseph

Nurse

MM

Matthew M. Mitchell

Security Guard

Maurice Johnson

Security Guard

JF

John Folse

Chef John Folse

JB

John Boutte

Charity Singer

Ted Ferguson

Judge Paulson

JO

Jack Olsen

Writer

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Comments

10 comments

Alhsa AlnozhaMay 2, 2025

its mind opening ..

BorMar 22, 2025

Adunni AdeMar 22, 2025

DONBIGGMar 22, 2025

Jean Pierre Dz'boMar 22, 2025

EpphyOct 22, 2024

Lucky ManzanoNov 22, 2022

*Minor Spoilers Ahead* John Taylor (Morris Chestnut) and Laura Taylor (Regina Hall) are on top of the world in their respective professions. John is a powerful lawyer and Laura is a top-shelf chef. They live in New Orleans in an amazing house but their lives are still incomplete. They long to start a family but they have miscarried 3 times and are down to their last usable embryo. They're trying to get a surrogate and then they come across Anna (Jaz Sinclair). She's 21 and she's a waitress in New Orleans. She comes across as very genuine and Laura takes a shine to her immediately. John isn't quite sure and after meeting her boyfriend Mike (Theo Rossi) he's even less so. Mike is creepy and is very possessive of Anna. But Laura is sure and encourages him to change his mind. Little do they know there's more going on in the shadows. Mike has a plan to extort money from the happy couple and as things progress he gets more and more aggressive toward Anna to fall in line with this plan. There is no pleasant way to say this, the majority of the plot of When the Bough Breaks has been done before. More than a few times actually, the most recent example in memory being Obsessed in 2009. This would have been okay if they had a way to switch things up or bring a fresh take on it. The surrogacy angle is relatively new but that's basically where the new stuff ends. They needed far more interesting stuff in the side-plots than whether John gets the big case at work or Laura gets the new position. We meet their subordinates for so little time that it is literally impossible to get attached to those parts of the plot at all. The scheme that Mike and Anna cook up isn't fresh, I'll admit it's one of the more interesting parts of the plot but it's also undercut by how telegraphed it is by Jaz and Theo's performances. The other problem with When the Bough Breaks is the pace of it. The first half of this movie is pretty boring. It's meant to set things up but they slow play it so much that you can't set up any kind of tension. The story comes across as heavily melodramatic and that isn't helped by how bad the dialogue is in spots. The plot does pick up in the second half but that's when it devolves into the more illogical stuff. They keep the cops out of it for stupid reasons, John doesn't tell his wife how Anna's behaviour is changing for no good reason. It has to happen because the plot doesn't work otherwise. The second half does pick up but it gets progressively more and more outlandish to the point where in the final rampage by Anna, she stops because her water breaks. Ridiculous is the word that comes to mind when I think about the ending of this movie. The acting wasn't all bad but this is the type of movie that doesn't do the actors/actresses any favours. You would think this kind of stuff would be beneath people like Michael K. Williams, Regina Hall and Morris Chestnut. They're all accomplished actors and this movie makes them look like amateurs. But they weren't the worst casualties, Theo Rossi was awful in this movie. I know he isn't a terrible actor, he was solid in Luke Cage but this movie made him look laughably bad. Jaz Sinclair is beautiful but she didn't have the chops to carry this movie like she needed to. She's definitely got potential but she's slightly robotic at the start and when things go south, she can't quite make it work. I've been pretty hard on this movie but I've seen worse. This is formulaic and that's the long and the short of it. It made money at the box office and we'll end up getting more movies like it in the future. I can't recommend this though, there are better thrillers out there that supply what you actually want from this. There are no thrills to be had here and that was the sole job it had to deliver on.

user4143644038664Nov 22, 2022

When the Bough Breaks The easiest way for a childless couple to get a baby is to hang around a Walmart washroom. Unfortunately, the parents in this psychological thriller impregnated a surrogate instead. Unsuccessful in their attempts to conceive, John (Morris Chestnut) and Laura (Regina Hall) ultimately decide to fertilize another woman's eggs in order to start their family. While their proxy Anna (Jaz Sinclair) appears to be the perfect choice, she soon develops an unhealthy attraction towards John that finds her driving a duplicitous wedge between the couple that could not only cost them their unborn child, but also their own lives. A glorified Lifetime movie masquerading as a major motion picture, this substandard melodrama even lacks the tautness and titillation needed to be a movie of the week. Low on ingenuity and craziness, this psycho stranger story fails at being bad. Besides, if the surrogate wants you dead won't your baby inherit that bloodlust? Red Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

leewatts698Nov 22, 2022

The stalker-woman thriller film has been done again and again and done well and done not so well but there is absolutely a class out there for it and sometimes they are even memorable! Single White Female feels like one of the matriarchs of this genre but you have Fear, Swimfan, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Fatal Attraction. Disclosure...I mean they are a dime a dozen but the ones I've seen are usually at least entertaining so I thought this was a surefire thing for an evening of scoffs and eye rolling but ultimately entertaining. To say they missed the mark on this is giving them too much credit. The story is fine but the characters are flat, the overacting is horrendous, the story is achingly predictable even for a genre film and despite potentially good cast members, they are not good in their roles. Everyone just seems to be going through the motions and it turns in one of the worst films I've seen in 2016. Morris Chestnut can be a decent actor. I've never seen him do anything outstanding but this does nothing to build his career. He is boring, vapid, has zero chemistry with his two female co-leads and feels very out of place. I don't think he wanted in this anymore than we did. Regina Hall has a similar background but she too is not really a leading lady and this proves she can't carry a film on her own. But in her defence, the character she plays is downright horrible. She's a weak, spineless, blubbering moron who will let her husband do anything to get the baby she wants. The key to a great stalker-thriller is the role of the crazy person and it makes for an interesting performance when they're good at it. Jaz Sinclair doesn't even get top billing on IMDb are the crazy surrogate. She is way overacting the entire time, isn't the least bit threatening and no one can overpower her even when she's in the throws of labour. It's insane. There are a few familiar faces in the supporting cast and their performance and the look on their face will demonstrate how much they just wanted their paycheck. I honestly don't know how this got made let alone released in theatres. It's straight to video at BEST and another reviewer suggested better left on Lifetime but even Lifetime knows what it does well at. Ironically director Jon Cassar is a fantastic Television director. He has a lot of talent but much like the cast he must have phoned this in or in editing the film was chopped to barely recognizable because it's bad...like really really bad. And in a crowded genre like this, there are modern day classics that are so much better worth spending the hour and a half on. This is utterly avoidable and hopefully completely forgettable. The ending is so unsatisfying that you can barely find anything here redeemable at all. 3/10

Tehua JuvenalNov 22, 2022

I am uncertain if this movie was made for the theaters or for Lifetime. I really liked the cast and the antagonist but that is as far as my liking goes. Pursuant to the subject "cliched", I was not even slightly startled at any point in this movie, as a matter of fact, the only surprise was when I saw the credits rolling, thought it wouldn't have ended. ***SPOILERS*** If they had killed off one of the Taylors, I could guarantee that the movie would have gotten a better review, wouldn't be great but good enough to spend money on. The plot was weak and flat, the so- called climax - wait what? - there wasn't a climax, well maybe but I refuse to call it a climax since the only excitement I got was to hear the baby cry. Overall this movie was horrible and I have almost had it with this amount of clichés hitting the theaters.