Death Becomes Her

Death Becomes Her
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Produced by	Robert Zemeckis Steve Starkey
Written by	Martin Donovan David Koepp
Starring	Goldie Hawn Meryl Streep Bruce Willis
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Arthur Schmidt
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 31, 1992
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$55 million
Box office	$149,022,650[1]

Death Becomes Her is a 1992 American dark slapstick screwball comedy fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis. The film focuses on a childish pair of rivals who drink a magic potion that promises eternal youth.

However, after they both are killed in their fight for the love of a neurotic mortician, the potion revives them as the undead and they are forced to maintain their deteriorating bodies forever. Death Becomes Her won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a commercial success.

Plot

In 1978 on Broadway in New York City, the narcissistic, manipulative, aging actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) performs in "Songbird", an ill-conceived musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth. Aspiring writer Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn), Madeline's longtime rival, is taking in the show with her fiancé, plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), who is the only person in the audience enjoying himself. Helen and Ernest are invited to Madeline's dressing room, where Madeline shows an interest in Ernest. One night while Ernest is prepping for surgery Madeline invites him to dinner. Ernest tells Helen about his dinner date with Madeline, but states that the dinner was just business. Despite Ernest's assurances to Helen that he has no interest in Madeline, the two are married within months.

Seven years later, Helen is an obese, depressed woman obsessed with Madeline, and is evicted from her apartment. After being arrested by the police, Helen is committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she drives the other patients and doctors crazy with her constant talk about Madeline. Helen pretends she is rehabilitated and is released, all the while plotting revenge on Madeline.

Seven more years later, Madeline's career is all but over. She is living in Beverly Hills with Ernest, now a miserable alcoholic reduced to working as a mortician. At a spa, Madeline is given the business card of a woman who specializes in beauty and youth rejuvenation, though she is dismissive. Madeline and Ernest attend the book signing party for "Forever Young", Helen's first novel, and Helen is thin, youthful, and radiantly beautiful.

Dumbfounded by Helen's appearance, Madeline goes to see her young lover and discovers he has been two-timing her. Madeline retrieves the business card and drives to the home of the mysterious Lisle Von Rhoman (Isabella Rossellini), a wealthy and beautiful socialite who looks like she is in her thirties, but reveals that she is actually 71. She offers Madeline a magical potion to reverse the process of aging. Madeline buys the potion and reverts to her youthful form. Lisle warns Madeline to take care of her new body.

Helen has seduced Ernest and convinced him to kill Madeline. Before their plot can be carried out, Ernest and Madeline have an argument and Ernest pushes Madeline down the stairs; Madeline breaks her neck, landing motionless at the bottom. Believing she is dead, Ernest phones Helen for advice, not noticing as Madeline sits up and approaches him with her head twisted backwards. After a trip to the ER, where they discover she has no pulse, a body temperature below 80 degrees, and two shattered vertebrae, they put her in the morgue after she faints in the doctor's office. Ernest thinks that her resurrection is a miracle and a sign that they are meant to be together, and uses his mortician skills to repair the damage to Madeline's body.

When Helen arrives at the house to dispose of Madeline's body, Madeline shoots Helen with a double-barreled shotgun and blackmails Ernest into helping her dispose of the body. When Helen gets up despite the basketball-sized hole gaping through her stomach, Madeline correctly guesses that Helen is also a client of Lisle's. The two rivals fight, but after failing to do any real damage to each other they reconcile. Ernest decides he cannot tolerate their bickering over him and decides to leave. Madeline and Helen beg him to repair their damaged bodies. Ernest agrees on the condition that after the work is done they never see him again. Madeline and Helen realize his repairs would only be temporary; they will need him to perform routine maintenance to their bodies forever. They conspire to make Ernest drink the potion as well, first offering him a roofie-ridden cocktail. Ernest decides to stop drinking and declines the beverage; they resort to knocking him unconscious before taking him to Lisle. Although Lisle makes an impassioned argument for immortality and offers to give the potion to Ernest free of charge, he refuses it--a life lived forever, knowing that everyone else in the world would continue to age and eventually die, is worthless to him. He puts the bottle in his pocket and attempts to flee.

Ernest climbs across the roof of Lisle's mansion to get to an exit, but slips after being startled by Madeline and Helen. His suspenders get caught on a rain gutter, dangling him above the ground. Madeline and Helen beg him to drink the potion so he will survive the fall. Knowing how unpleasant immortality would be in their company, he drops the potion, then falls after it when his suspenders break. After crashing through the skylight glass ceiling he lands in Lisle's swimming pool and escapes, leaving town and disappearing without a trace. The two women realize they will have to take care of one another for the rest of their "lives".

Thirty-seven years later, Ernest has died and Madeline and Helen are attending his funeral. Ernest is eulogized as having lived a good and adventurous life, accomplishing much more during his life than Helen and Madeline are likely to do in immortality. While wiping her eyes, Helen smears paint on her skin. She asks Madeline for a can of spray paint, and the two bicker when they realize it is missing.

Outside the church, the two raise their veils to reveal faces caked with smeared makeup and peeling layers of hardware paint over their gray, rotted skin. Still bickering with Madeline, Helen steps on the missing can of spray paint and begins to lose her balance. When Madeline deliberately hesitates in helping her back up, the impatient Helen grabs her and the two women tumble to the bottom of the steps, shattering to pieces. Madeline's tottering, decapitated head is asked by Helen's head, "Do you remember where you parked the car?"

Cast

• Goldie Hawn as Helen Sharp
• Meryl Streep as Madeline Ashton
• Bruce Willis as Dr. Ernest Menville
• Isabella Rossellini as Lisle von Rhoman
• Ian Ogilvy as Chagall
• Adam Storke as Dakota
• Nancy Fish as Rose
• Alaina Reed Hall as Psychologist
• Michelle Johnson as Anna
• Mary Ellen Trainor as Vivian Adams
• William Frankfather as Mr. Franklin
• John Ingle as Eulogist
• Debra Jo Rupp as Patient
• Fabio as Lisle's bodyguard
• Sydney Pollack as E.R. Doctor (Uncredited)

Reception

The film received mixed reviews.^[2][3] It currently holds a 53% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 19 reviews (10 positive, 9 negative).^[4] Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film a 'thumbs down', commenting that while the film had great special effects, it lacked any real substance or character depth.^[5]

Despite the lackluster reception, it won an Academy Award and Meryl Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. The film opened at #1 at the box office with $12,110,355 upon the also opening weekends of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bebe's Kids.^[6]

Awards and nominations

Award	Role	Result
Academy Award	Best Visual Effects	Won
BAFTA Award	Best Visual Effects	Won
Golden Globe	Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical (Meryl Streep)	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best Actor (Bruce Willis)	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best Actress (Meryl Streep)	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best Supporting Actress (Isabella Rossellini)	Won
Saturn Award	Best Visual Effects	Won

Special effects

Death Becomes Her was a technically complex movie to make, and the production had a fair number of mishaps. For example, in a scene where Helen Sharp and Madeline Ashton are battling with shovels, Meryl Streep accidentally cut Goldie Hawn's face, leaving a faint scar. Despite the film winning an Academy Award for its effects, Streep admitted that she disliked working on a project that focused so heavily on special effects, saying:

My first, my last, my only. I think it's tedious. Whatever concentration you can apply to that kind of comedy is just shredded. You stand there like a piece of machinery — they should get machinery to do it. I loved how it turned out. But it's not fun to act to a lampstand. "Pretend this is Goldie, right here! Uh, no, I'm sorry, Bob, she went off the mark by five centimeters, and now her head won't match her neck!" It was like being at the dentist.^[7]

Computer generated imagery (CGI) software was used to create the skin effects, such as Madeline's twisted neck and stretching skin, and the shotgun hole through Helen's abdomen.

Soundtrack

The score was composed by American film composer Alan Silvestri who also composed most of Zemeckis' other films.^[8]

References

1. ^ "Death Becomes Her at Box Office Mojo". http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=deathbecomesher.htm. Retrieved October 4, 2010. 
2. ^ "Death Becomes Her". Variety. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117901657.html?categoryid=31&cs=1. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 
3. ^ "Death Becomes Her". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,311403,00.html. Retrieved 2010-10-03. 
4. ^ Death Becomes Her Rotten Tomatoes profile
5. ^ Death Becomes Her review Atthemoviestv.com
6. ^ "Weekend Box Office `Honors' Tops in a Lackluster Bunch". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-10/entertainment/ca-56005_1_weekend-box-office. Retrieved 2010-12-28. 
7. ^ "Depth Becomes Her". Entertainment Weekly.. 2000-03-24. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,275733_4,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-25. 
8. ^ 10 of the Most Underrated Horror Scores!

External links

• Death Becomes Her at the Internet Movie Database
• Death Becomes Her at the TCM Movie Database
• Movie stills