‘This is life’s ultimate cruelty…’
In this week’s edition of ‘there is absolutely no way this would get made today’ I present Death Becomes Her. This is a high concept black comedy from a heavyweight director (Robert Zemeckis), with an all-star cast (Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, etc) shot on a $55 million budget (!). Ladies and gentlemen, the ’90s are gone and they’re never coming back…
For some reason, Madeline Ashton (Streep) and Helen Sharp (Hawn) find themselves fighting over the same inept, moustachioed man (Willis). They’re also fighting the inexorable march of Father Time as both women have started to age. In a quest to reverse the ageing process, Madeline contacts Lisle von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini), a mysterious socialite who specialises in rejuvenation. Lisle produces an elixir for Madeline that allows her to live forever. But at what cost, Lois? At what cost?
While Death Becomes Her never threatens to match Zemickis’ best work (this is the man who brought us Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Cast Away for chrissakes), it’s still a lot of fun to see Willis playing against type alongside Streep and Hawn, channelling their inner Bette Davis and Joan Crawford with a pair of wonderfully catty turns as two women simultaneously realising they make better friends than they do enemies. I think the issue with this film for me is the tone. It’s too close to the work of Tim Burton for comfort and while the body horror is a resounding success (the special effects here are excellent throughout), the comedy never really lands.
While it is heartening that a film like Death Becomes Her was allowed to exist at all (and that it made almost three times its budget at the box office), but it’s a good film rather than a great one. Still. A good time at the movies. And that’s all anyone can ask for in these troubled times.
