Unlike “Fatal Attraction,” in which two women fight over a mate, here the battleground is the nursery, the sacred ground of females. “It was clear to me the maternal bond is so fiery and so strong that it is one of the hottest buttons you can push,” she says. “Perhaps the reason we haven’t seen it before is that men have been in charge of making movies and no man has ever been a mother.” Neither for that matter was Silver when she wrote the script for her USC film school master’s thesis. Joe, now 8 months, was born just as the movie was going into production. (In fact, he deserves credit for the baby monitor and breast pump that play such vivid roles in “Cradle.”)
Silver is stung by the suggestion that because it pits two women against one another, the movie can be seen as anti-feminist. “This is a thriller,” she protests. “It needs a good guy and a bad guy; that’s dramatic theory 101. I made them both women because I know women best and I like them and I never see enough movies about them.”
Oh, in case you’re wondering who’s minding Silver’s baby when she is at work, it’s a nanny in her 40s-hired only after Silver checked her references scrupulously.
