When the Bough Breaks

A childless couple (Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall), desperate after repeated failures, agrees to hire a surrogate mother (Jaz Sinclair), a young woman so warm and sweet that she seems too good to be true—and, in the way of so many movies like this, it turns out that she is. The movie boasts strong performances by Chestnut and Hall (both of whom are always welcome), a decent sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nasty turn by the relatively new Sinclair, a sturdy supporting cast (Romany Malco, Michael K. Williams, Theo Rossi, Glenn Morshower) and a nice professional gloss courtesy of cinematographer David Moxness. Ultimately, though, all are undone by the tiresome familiarity of Jack Olsen’s predictable script and Jon Cassar’s limp direction, both of which telegraph every “twist” several minutes in advance. J.L.