When The Bough Breaks is a 2016 American psychological thriller film directed by Jon Cassar and starring Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall, Jaz Sinclair and Theo Rossi.
The screenplay concerns a woman who begins to develop a deadly crush on the husband of the couple she is surrogate mothering for.
A married couple in their 40s, John and Laura Taylor desperately want to have a baby, but they are unable to have a lasting pregnancy.
After attempting all other options, the couple hire a beautiful young woman named Anna, who agrees to become a gestational surrogate mother for the Taylors.
Anna's growing obsession interferes with what was a plan by her and Mike, to scam the couple by demanding money.
Anna returns to the Taylor house, killing the family cat and assaulting Laura before going into labor.
On October 29, 2014, Sony's Screen Gems hired Cassar to direct When the Bough Breaks, which Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne were producing.
[10] Filming was taking place on St. Charles Avenue in early March, and was scheduled to end in mid-March 2015.
[15] In the United States, When the Bough Breaks was released on September 9, 2016, alongside The Disappointments Room, Sully and The Wild Life, with the studio projecting it to gross $10–12 million from 2,246 theaters in its opening weekend.
The site's critical consensus reads, "Shallow, clichéd, and silly instead of suspenseful, When the Bough Breaks offers nothing domestic thriller fans haven't already seen before – and done far better.
[21] Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times criticized Cassar's direction, suggesting that "Hollywood needs to give the reductive, crazy, sex-obsessed female character a permanent rest".
[22] In a review for RogerEbert.com, Nick Allen criticized the film's premise as "morally tasteless", writing, "Despite the story's initially completely baffling but welcome focus on characters for a change, the movie is baffled by the requirement of motivation, instead wanting to honor ideas of obsession while finding a way to get some dead body insert shots into the mix.