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USA 1992
Directed by
Robert Zemeckis
103 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
2 stars

Death Becomes Her

Meryl Streep is rightly regarded as America’s finest screen actress but even Ms Streep has her skeleton in the closet and it is Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her, a film so awful in conception and even worse in execution that it is a wonder that it ever got made, let alone released.

Streep plays Madeline Ashton, a fading screen and theatre actress married to a cosmetic surgeon, Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) who left his devoted girlfriend and Madeline’s old friend, Helen Sharp, for her.  Fast forwad seven years and the marriage has failed, Ernest is a "flaccid" dweeb scorned by Madeline and Helen is implementing an elaborate plan to get him back. Then Madeline takes an elixir of youth supplied by the exotic Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini) that also happens to make her impervious to death.  So when Ernest eventually cracks and throws Madeline down the stairs killing her she comes back to life.  Then it transpires that Helen has taken the same potion and after the resurrected Madeline shoots her at point blank range she too comes back to life. Ernest by now is sick of both of them but they need him to keep them looking good.

To be generous one could say of the script by Martin Donovan and David Koepp that it was intended to be a satire of Hollywood and in particular Beverley Hills society, but beyond that point the actual realization is somewhere in the region of lame to inane.  It’s not that Streep is awful as an actress, indeed she is typically forthcoming, but her character requires her to demean her talents. That the film was made at a time before CGI had properly developed and thus its special effects relied on  unconvincing make-up and prosthetics only compounds the embarrassment. It’s embarrassing, not so much for its clumsiness but because none of it is even slightly funny. In the latter respect Bruce Willis is a guilty party. As for Isabella Rossellini, the best one could say is that her performance is an oddity that fans will probably appreciate.

On the other hand Goldie Hawn, shorn of her familiar daffy schtick, is actually an improvement on her usual fare and whether as a schlub in a fat suit or a red hot vamp she gives the film some spark. Even so, everyone involved in this film could have spent their time much more wisely

Available from: Shock Entertainment

 

 

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