She-Devil (1989)

Brilliant and touching

Absolutely the worst movie.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie version of Fay Wheldon's novel "The Life and Loves of a She- Devil" for the most part misses its marks. You would think a movie with this cast and great source material would be a lot better than it is but it's not. Though a film's failure cannot be blamed on just one thing, for this film, the lion's share belongs to the director, Susan Seidelman. Her direction is flat and unimaginative. She shot "She Devil" like it was a TV movie. It certainly looks like it. There's no spark or liveliness to it. It's point and shoot direction. This is acceptable when the actors and the material are solid but here they are not. As good as Roseanne Barr (or Arnold or whatever last name she was or wasn't using at the time) was on her TV show, here she's as flat as Seidelman's direction and since she's the center of the film, it nearly kills it. I think our sympathies were supposed to rest firmly with Roseanne's character Ruth but since she is presented so negatively, we cannot understand why her husband (or anyone) would have been attracted to her in the first place. She comes across as gross and incompetent. There's nothing at stake when she seeks revenge on Bob for leaving her because neither character feels worth the time.The whole movie would have been forgotten if it had not been for one thing: the unbelievable, incredible, tour-de-force comic performance of Meryl Streep. Every single scene she is in is a comic whopper. When she is on screen, the whole movie suddenly jolts to life. Streep's acting skills often rely on capturing the smallest of nuances and in "She Devil" she nails them perfectly. Her Mary Fisher is a woman addicted to the impossible dream of perfect romance. Every word out of her mouth is whispery affirmation of it. She is so good that we end up rooting for her and worse, feeling sorry for her. Streep's best scene (and they are all good) comes about midway when Bob (now cheating on her) comes home late. Streep, on all fours, wags her fanny as she exclaims she's an artist. Brilliant.

Rosanne Barr and Meryl Streep are witty,funny,and shine in this tickler. Streep is great in such movies as Kramer vs Kramer,a heart tugging movie.Barr is spunky,and I loved her in her self-titled sitcom Roseanne. Here,the two ladies play rivals for the affections of a somewhat selfish,arrogant womanizer.Bob Patchett(Begley),has a roving eye.When his wife takes notice,she devises a plan to destroy him.Bob first gets cozy with Mary Fisher(Streep),a romance author.Mary has no morals, and woos him away from his family.When she becomes his wife,he starts getting "friendlier" with Olivia,who is not such a "honey",her real last name.I love Linda Hunt, who plays Hooper,a registered nurse.Ruth makes it harder for Fisher to stay away from her mother.She devises a way to take Mrs. Fisher(nursing home resident),and keep her as a permanent fixture in the household.One may feel sorry for Andy and Nicolette,the children Ruth feels for.I love the ending,however,where the son and daughter turn out to be well-adjusted.Bravo, to Streep and Barr for this gag a minute riot.I love it!

This movie takes some well-deserved licks. I'm sympathetic to the theme (and deriving comedy from it) but this is just a misfire. For starters in answer to the question everyone was asking when this came out.. No Meryl Streep cannot do comedy. I can't imagine she's ever told a joke.Part of her problem is that as a self-impressed diva, she can't bear to fit herself into the scale of a movie. She's too freaking needy for that. Her self-conscious technique continually takes you out of the world of her movies, and standing amidst the ruins, all that's left for dazed viewers is to fawn appreciatively over her "ability." Apparently this trick got old for her too, and in an effort to develop some range, she began to choose absurdly inappropriate material that only further proved she had no versatility; this, Death Becomes Her, The River Wild. Can she do comedy? No, but she can't do adventure either.On the Actors studio when James Lipton asked what her least favorite word was, Streep sneered "edgy!" Perhaps this is because in her whole career she has only mastered "earnest." She couldn't do edgy if she was holding Lee Strasberg at gunpoint. She's too cerebral. She botches everything but drama.In an effort to say something nice about her, she was good in both Fred Schepisi films twenty years ago; Plenty and A Cry in the Dark.

Meryl Streep as an actress is in a league of all time greats and a legend in her lifetime. In She Devil (and this is a must watch movie ) she has performed a role at odds with her persona with grace and panache.The fast aging author unhappy without a man in her life is played to perfection. The scene in which Meryl Streep is just getting out of bed and mistakes the dog licking her toes for the man in her life is exceptionally well played.She uses her fully clothed behind to communicate the frustration so exceedingly well it is a scene which stays firmly etched in the mind.It is great to see the movie breaking typecasts and stereotypes and unravels like a fairy tale the female version of David taking on Goliath.