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.
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.
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