This vehicle for the talents of Julia Roberts is a suspense chiller that does its job pretty well. The action starts off by establishing Ms R as a wife beaten by her affluent but unbalanced husband (Patrick Bergin), and continues with a very effective midnight storm at sea, in which she escapes to a new life. The rest of the film is a slow build-up to the last reel, when Bergin finds out she's alive and tracks her down. The climax is chock full of false shocks, as director Joseph Ruben shamelessly plays on his audience's nerves. Where will Bergin jump out from, to make us, and Roberts, collapse with fright? The middle-section romance between Roberts and small-town drama teacher Kevin Anderson is predictably soppy but, nonetheless, this is a seat-gripper from which fans of the genre will not come away disappointed.

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