My Review of Death Becomes Her (1992)

 

Written by Martin Donovan And David Koepp

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Madeleine: "You should learn not to compete with me. I always win!"

Helen: "You may have always won, but you never played fair!"

Madeleine: "Who cares how I played? I won!"

Last month, this gem of a movie turned thirty two years old and leaving it for the month of Halloween, I knew it was something I was going to want to watch. Oh I love this one.

Giving some of their best career performances to date, you have the strangest love triangle. The meek writer Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and her boyfriend, the plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis). Going to the play of rival Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) saw everything go wrong for poor Helen.

I mean she lost Ernest to Madeline, gained a shit tonne of weight, lived like an absolute slob in a grotty apartment and when in therapy, drove everyone else up the wall with her obsession over Madeline. Fortunately for Helen, things could get better for her.

On the other side of things, Madeline and Ernest were a rather miserable couple with the former obsessed with ageing and the latter almost drinking himself to death. Then Helen re-emerged as a successful writer and looked absolutely sensational just to stick the knife in to Madeline.

The reason for Helen's transformation of course wasn't a good diet, exercise and plastic surgery. Instead it was down to a magical potion by Lisle (Isabella Rosselini). Madeline soon took the potion while Ernest and Helen were plotting her demise.

This was where this movie truly shines with Ernest's attempts of murder going spectacularly wrong and both Madeline and Helen realising they had far more in common than they thought. As a team, they ultimately became Ernest's worst nightmare with their abuse of their bodies and desperation to remain youthful.

By the end of the movie, Ernest had managed to find a meaning in his life when he got away from both Helen and Madeline. As for the latter two, yes they took care of each other (not through choice) but the last scene when they fell apart really cemented the general folly of trying to hold on to youth.

- Tracey Ullman had a role as a bartender named Toni that was cut from the movie along with extraneous jokes.

- Kevin Kline was originally cast as Ernest but was replaced by Bruce Willis.

- Standout music: Meryl Streep's Me.

- Chronology: The movie goes from 1978 to 1985 to 1992 to 2029 in Los Angeles.

Death Becomes Her has more than earned its status as a cult classic. It's a product of its time and an absolute joy from start to finish. Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis are brilliantly cast in these roles and all three deliver sublime performances. It's also hilarious as well as horrific during the right moments.

Rating: 9 out of 10