Why I loved this movie... points to consider...
A lot of people have commented that Susan Swift screamed too much or acted "too happy/dorky" in the normal dialogue scenes. Some points to consider: I have had severe panic attacks from past trauma (from this life, of course) and some of the worst ones really do make you hysterical. I can only imagine how a child reexperiencing burning to death in a previous life (also, she doesn't seem to be awake when she is hysterical, but acts more like a child in a night terror). I think anyone that has ever almost died and felt extreme pain/panic and terror realizes that reliving it can trigger enormous panic, and, yes, screaming, crying, flailing, etc. I thought the hysteria scenes were well played.
True, Ivy acted a little immature and maybe "dorky" or too happy, but she also seemed to have very overprotective parents. Times were different in the 70s- 11 year olds didn't dress like miniature prostitutes back then, and she is a single child in a rich family and clearly adored by her parents. I wouldn't say she is spoiled but perhaps over-protected and shielded from the world (at 11 they won't consider leaving her home alone, etc). I thought she seemed like a very sweet, slightly naive (even for an 11 year old) girl who only had the faintest notion that something terrifying was happening to her in her sleep (I think she was in a semi-conscious/dissociative/night-terror type state and she seemed to display amnesia about her behavior after the fact, such as not remembering how she burned her hands, etc).
The father acted like a very devoted, loving father but also close minded and strongly athiestic. I think he played the part perfectly and acted pretty much how a father with that sort of personality in that sort of situation would act.
The mother seems less athiestic (probably agnostic)- there are small clues to this (for instance, when her husband tells her that when he dies there will be no heaven or hell, it will be the end, and she seems dismayed). Women generally also tend to respond more emotionally to a child in serious distress and a mother identifying with her daughter, and therefor being more receptive to Hoover's ideas makes sense to me. The father clearly loves his child and believes she has psycological problems and doesn't even consider the "crazy" ideas of Hoover until the very end.
Anthony Hopkins was excellent- he was a distraught father who, after the death of both his wife and child, came across a clairvoyant who planted a seed of hope (which he originally thought was bogus)... but because he was grieving so deeply, the idea stuck (whether or not reincarnation is true or not, Hoover developed into a man who NEEDED to believe it was real) and he changed his entire life and spiritual belief system. That he seems like a "kook" in the occidental world is hardly surprising- the buddhist monks I sometimes see on the bus with their prayer beads get strange looks from the more materialistic riders (hostile looks, even)... anyway... yes, Hoover may have "swayed" Ivy, but in a hysterical state she responded to him quite quickly (this was before he had any "alone" time with her to plant ideas). Her "nightmares" began, from what I can tell from the movie (I don't know about the book) around her 6th birthday, and she was 5 when she died and never got to be six in her "previous" life so her beginning to have problems with the nightmares at this age makes sense (If anyone has seen "Godsend" they'll remember that the "cloned" Adam doesn't begin to have nightmares/"memories" of his "first" life until after he reaches the age at which he originally died...)
If Susan Swift's eyes are crossed, so what? I am glad they didn't pick a kid that was physically "perfect"... she is an average little girl experiencing something extraordinary, whatever the cause.
The hypnotism scene was amazingly done, and I thought she portrayed innocence very well (maybe that was part of the point in making her seem younger than most 11 year olds? A tie/forshadowing to Audrey rose, who died at 5... maybe part of Ivy's personality/soul was "stuck" at the age of 5 and manifested at dorkiness/over-excitability/sappiness? Who knows.
I love this movie. The first time I saw it, I thought it was cheesy, and the more often I watched it, the more subtle little touches I discovered, and the creepier it became for me.
Just my two cents.
"Man is a social animal who despises his fellow man" ~ Delacroix