The One Steven Soderbergh Movie The Director Himself Famously Hated
There are many outstanding movies the acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh has to his name.
To list a few, his best include Out of Site (1999), Erin Brockovich (2000), Magic Mike (2012), Traffic (2000), Logan Lucky (2017), and of course the entirety of the Ocean's Trilogy. However, even the very best filmmakers have the occasional dud. And few directors hate some of their work as much as Soderbergh hates what he once labeled as the "worst thing he's ever made."
During a behind-the-scenes commentary with Soderbergh, which is featured on the Criterion Collection's Blu-ray release, the director openly admits to hating his fourth directorial feature film The Underneath (1995).
The Underneath is a crime drama starring Peter Gallagher and Alison Elliott, based on the novel Criss Cross by Don Tracy and the earlier film adaption. It also starred other familiar faces including Paul Dooley, Shelley Duvall, and Elisabeth Shue. Although the movie had all the themes and familiar concepts the director is known for in his other works, Soderbergh ultimately found that this one film in particular never succeeded how he wanted it to.
Going into greater detail about making the movie in the Criterion interview, Soderbergh reveals even during its production he knew the film would be no good. Remembering back he admits to daydreaming at the time of when the shoot would eventually end.
As a director who is very intimate with the films he makes, his heart was simply not invested in this particular project at that moment. Amid suffering a crumbling marriage, but being unable to leave the film, Soderbergh was stuck continuing with the movie. He mentions feeling lonely during his time on set and regrets that everyone was working hard on a film he had ultimately given up on.
Upon the movie's release, it was received as a commercial flop at the box office. Although it received a mixed critical response from reviewers, no one appeared to dislike it as much as Soderbergh himself. Even when the Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob called Soderbergh to offer to premiere the film at the 1995 festival, he refused. Despite that Soderbergh will admit the movie is visually beautiful with a well-written score, he finds the whole thing too long and essentially boring.
"15 seconds in I know we're in trouble because of how f***g long it takes to get through those opening credits. That's just an indication of what's wrong with this thing: it's just totally sleepy."
Fortunately, it wasn't all bad for the director. Soderbergh explains that The Underneath for him was a wake-up call. During shooting for the film, he had already decided on his next project, which would lead to the experimental film Schizopolis (1996). Although the movie also did not do overly well financially, critics labeled it as a 'directorial palate cleanse' for the filmmaker. Who would then go on to direct his notable successes including Contagion (2011), Side Effects (2013), Unsane (2028), and many more. If every artist has at least one masterpiece inside of them, maybe they have one inferior piece as well. Soderbergh would definitely admit The Underneath was his failure.