Society has been obsessed with youth and beauty for many years. It has become accepted that men become more distinguished as they age while women just get old. After an actresses reaches a certain age, it does seem like her career is over even if she is extremely talented. Death Becomes Her, a dark comedy, dealt with some of those issues.
Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp had known each other for many years. They weren’t really friends since Madeline had a history of stealing Helen’s boyfriends. Helen was engaged to Ernest Menville, a plastic surgeon, and decided to take him to a musical that Madeline was staring in. Ernest was captivated by Madeline and ended up leaving Helen to marry Madeline. Seven years later, Helen was very depressed and over weight. She lived in an apartment overrun with cats and ate cake frosting straight from the can. She was taken from her apartment and forced into therapy.
Seven years after that, Madeline and Ernest were still married even though they didn’t get along. Ernest drank a lot, tended to sleep in a different room and was working for a mortuary. Madeline was obsessed with her appearance and keeping her youth. They were invited to a party for a book that Helen had written. Madeline was horrified to see that Helen looked gorgeous and she started trying to charm Ernest. Madeline decided to try something drastic to regain her youth and visited Lisle, a mysterious woman that claimed to have a potion that would stop aging. Madeline was thrilled with the results until something unexpected happened which eventually led her to having a fight with Helen.
Madeline was very obsessed with her looks and keeping her youth throughout Death Becomes Her, even at the beginning of the movie when she first met Ernest. It was believable that she would be so conscious of that since she was an actress and many actresses don’t get offered as many parts once they reach a certain age. Other movies and books have dealt with people wanting to keep their youth, so that aspect of the movie wasn’t the most original. I did feel like the potion that Madeline got from Lisle and the effects of it were more original. Everything related to the potion did make the movie very entertaining for me.
I thought that Death Becomes Her was very funny. The movie featured a lot of dark humor related to aging and even death, not the most humorous subjects to begin with. Those subjects can be very touchy and it can be hard to incorporate humor when dealing with them. I thought that the movie did that very well. Some of what happened was rather silly, but it worked well for this movie. Madeline and Helen ended up having what has to be one of the funniest fights in any movie. Much of what happened wasn’t believable, so people need to be able to suspend their disbelief to fully enjoy the movie. There was also a few things that would normally be in horror movies instead of a comedy. The horror elements fit in perfectly with the plot. Some creepy sounding music was played in different scenes throughout the movie. The music actually reminded me of the music from some Alfred Hitchcock movies.
When Death Becomes Her was released in 1992, it contained what were cutting edge special effects for that time. Some very unusual things happened to Madeline and even Helen. Different types of effects had to be used to create those things. I thought that the effects worked well and added to the movie. Certain things wouldn’t have worked without them. The special effects were created by Industrial Light and Magic and won the Oscar for best visual effects in 1993. It was clear that a few things were done with effects, but I didn’t feel they were too obvious or distracting. Some of the effects also added contributed to the humor in the movie. In some of the scenes, Helen’s eyes were a very unnatural looking color. I think some kind of effect was used to achieve that look. It did make her look freaky in those scenes.
There was a bit of a love triangle going on with Madeline, Helen, and Ernest. He started out engaged to Helen and then left her to marry Madeline. When Helen returned to their lives, she didn’t hesitate to use her sexuality to try to manipulate Ernest into doing what she wanted. There weren’t any actual sex scenes in the movie, though it was made clear that Madeline had been having an affair with a much younger man. Lisle was wearing very little in the few scenes she was in. One scene did show her bare behind. Earlier in the movie, another woman’s bare behind was also shown. That was it for nudity in the movie. There was swearing in the movie though I don’t remember hearing the word that rhymes with luck. I believe the swearing and few sexual situations were why the movie was rated PG-13.
There were really only three main characters in Death Becomes Her. All three of them had different issues though it did seem like Madeline and Helen had more than Ernest. He’d been a very successful plastic surgeon and after he married to Madeline, he eventually ended up working at a mortuary, doing the make up on the bodies for the funerals. He complained about how his life had turned out between his drinking. He had let Madeline manipulate him over the years. He ended up letting Helen manipulate him when she turned up again as well. He was weak and a bit of a geek. Bruce Willis was wonderful in the part. Ernest was very different from many of the parts that Willis became famous for playing.
Madeline was a very controlling, bossy, abrasive woman. She could act nice to people when she wanted something, but she really wasn’t nice overall. She was obsessed with beauty and staying young. She was a believable character even though she went to some extremes and did a few unbelievable things. Meryl Streep was great in the part. This was one of the few more comedic parts that she has played and definitely one of the most unique movies that she’s been in. Lisle was the very mysterious woman that had a way to stop aging. She was only in a few scenes, but Isabella Rossellini was good in the part.
Helen started off being a mousy, shy woman that just sat back and let Madeline walk all over her. She let her obsession with Madeline drive her life for years, making her depressed and very over weight before she had some sort of break through and turned her life around. She managed to change a lot about her appearance and get a book published before she saw Madeline and Ernest again. By that time, Helen was just as manipulative as Madeline and maybe even more devious. Helen really wasn’t that nice either. Goldie Hawn was wonderful in the part. She and Streep worked very well together and were believable as women that had a love/hate friendship.
Main Cast
Goldie Hawn - Helen Sharp Isabella Rossellini - Lisle Meryl Streep - Madeline Ashton Bruce Willis - Dr. Ernest Menville
Robert Zemeckis - Director
DVD Information
I picked up the DVD of Death Becomes Her a few years ago. My DVD only has the full screen version of the movie. I wasn’t able to find a widescreen version. The disc contains very few extras. There are production notes and information about the cast and film makers. There was a short behind the scenes featurette that had the cast and director talking briefly about the making of the movie. Scenes from the movie were shown while they were talking. Some scenes that were shown were ones that didn’t make it into the movie or were things that happened on set between takes. It was explained how some of the computer effects were used for the movie. I did think that was interesting.
Death Becomes Her was a well done dark comedy. It was very funny and entertaining and is worth watching, especially for fans of the cast.
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