{"id":6579,"date":"2024-10-25T12:09:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T16:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6579"},"modified":"2024-10-25T12:09:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T16:09:33","slug":"she-devil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/she-devil\/","title":{"rendered":"She-Devil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"She-Devil<\/strong> (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual conversation\/innuendo, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Susan Seidelman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Howard Shore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Oliver Stapleton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 8, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, Ed Begley Jr., Sylvia Miles, Linda Hunt, A Martinez, Elisebeth Peters, Bryan Larkin, Maria Pitillo, Mary Louise Wilson, Deborah Rush, Susan Willis, Jack Gilpin, Robin Leach.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $15.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I make no bones about my dislike of Roseanne Barr. It\u2019s nothing to do with her looks, I\u2019m NOT that shallow. It\u2019s that I find her incredibly grating. I never liked her sitcom. That voice of hers is like fingernails on a blackboard to me. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s funny. She just gets on my nerves. It\u2019s because of this I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d like She-Devil<\/strong> even though it\u2019s directed by Susan Seidelman, a filmmaker whose offbeat sensibility I love. It shows in comedies like Desperately Seeking Susan, Making Mr. Right and the underrated Cookie. I steeled myself for an annoying 99 minutes only to find She-Devil<\/strong> wasn\u2019t the torture-fest I thought it would be. It\u2019s actually a pretty good dark comedy albeit an uneven one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Roseanne plays Ruth Patchett, a fat, clumsy suburban housewife with a big ugly mole on her upper lip. She\u2019s married to Bob (Begley, Get Crazy), an accountant who doesn\u2019t treat her very well. He\u2019s always looking to expand his business which is why he really doesn\u2019t want Ruth to accompany him to a lavish dinner party. He\u2019s afraid she\u2019ll embarrass him. Well, it\u2019s because of her clumsiness that he makes the acquaintance of Mary Fisher (Streep, A Cry in the Dark), a super-successful trash romance novelist who gives new meaning to the word \u201cnarcissist\u201d. Bob doesn\u2019t even try to hide his instant attraction from his wife. He drops her off a block from their home so he can drive 75 miles to take Mary home. What a stand-up guy…. NOT!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Eventually, Ruth confronts Bob about his affair and he responds by packing his suitcase. Before he leaves, he tells Ruth that his four most important assets are his home, family, career and freedom. This will be the foundation for her revenge. She makes a list, crossing off each item as she destroys it. She starts by blowing up their house. Then she drops their two kids, Nicolette (Peters, Rocky V) and Andy (Larkin, Jacob\u2019s Ladder), at Mary\u2019s mansion where she announces that they\u2019re all his… and hers. She has no intention of returning for them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Next, Ruth reinvents herself as Vesta Rose and takes a job at the nursing home where Mary has her mother (Miles, Crossing Delancey) stashed and drugged. Ruth fixes it so Mary\u2019s mom gets kicked out of the home and has to live with her daughter. Of course, Mom is a foul-mouthed, embarrassing sort with absolutely no filter. Wait until you hear what she tells a reporter from People magazine about her daughter. As Bob and Mary\u2019s perfect lives collapse around them, their relationship deteriorates as well. Meanwhile, Ruth\/Vesta becomes a success when she opens an employment agency for overlooked women, society\u2019s female rejects. Of course, she never abandons her plan to utterly ruin her philandering husband\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For some reason, I don\u2019t mind Roseanne so much in She-Devil<\/strong>. It\u2019s probably because I sympathize with her character. What Bob does to her is awful. In fact, it sucks. He\u2019s a big jerk, always putting Ruth down. Bob\u2019s dad (played by an uncredited Clifton James) is a bigger one. Their kids are ungrateful, entitled brats who care more about the things they lost in the fire than their mother\u2019s welfare. They never even ask if she\u2019s okay. This actually works to Ruth\u2019s advantage as they make a mess of Mary\u2019s perfect home with some help from their dog. That reminds me, I hate what happens to Mary\u2019s little white poodle. NOBODY deserves that, not even a narcissistic bitch like Mary. In any event, She-Devil<\/strong> marks the only time I\u2019ve ever liked Roseanne in anything although like might be too strong a word. Why don\u2019t we say \u201cfavorably tolerated\u201d instead?<\/p>\n

\u00a0After so many serious roles, it\u2019s nice to see Streep has a flair for comedy. It\u2019s on full display in She-Devil<\/strong> as she tries to deal with all the new crap life has sent her way while she\u2019s trying to finish her latest POS novel. This is a woman who lies about her age (NO way she\u2019s 34!), employs a sexy butler (Martinez, Santa Barbara) who does anything but \u201cbuttle\u201d and puts on a merry public fa\u00e7ade as easily as one puts on a shirt. One thing she can\u2019t do is laundry; I\u2019ve seen toddlers with a better idea of what does and doesn\u2019t go in the washer. The bottom line is she\u2019s funny as the type of woman who gives feminism a bad name. Miles is a riot as the mother who openly discusses her bowel issues at the dinner table. Begley is sufficiently nasty as the husband due for a big takedown.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not all of She-Devil<\/strong> works. Like I said earlier, it\u2019s uneven. Some of it is funny and some of it is not very funny. It\u2019s a bit clumsy at times. The scene with Ruth walking away from her house as it explodes is superimposed. Linda Hunt (Kindergarten Cop) is seriously underused as a friend who helps Ruth in her crusade for justice and self-esteem. It does have a satisfying ending though. Come on, who doesn\u2019t love a good revenge story where the bad guy (or gal) really bites it in the end. It may not have been boffo at the box office, but She-Devil<\/strong> is good devilish fun (mostly).\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She-Devil (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual conversation\/innuendo, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Susan Seidelman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Howard Shore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Oliver Stapleton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 8, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, Ed Begley Jr., Sylvia Miles, Linda Hunt, A Martinez, Elisebeth Peters, Bryan Larkin, Maria Pitillo, Mary Louise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/She-Devil-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7423,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579\/revisions\/7423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}