Sliver

Stone looks distinctly ordinary in this glossy, glassy sex-thriller. She's an uptight book editor who moves into a fancy Manhattan high-rise (the sliver of the title). Neighbours include blocked crime novelist Berenger and smirking Baldwin. Both pursue her, but which is the blonde-fixated serial killer? If Basic Instinct played off Vertigo, Noyce's film would like to be a sort of sexed-up Rear Window. Here, however, voyeurism is not so much subtext as designer-look apparel trimmed with chic post-feminist accessories. Though based on an Ira Levin novel, the movie is essentially just another variation on Joe Eszterhas's rudimentary 'psychotic fuck' scenarios.