Death Becomes Her

Robert Zemeckis directed a few classics in his prime. Back to the Future. Excellent. Back to the Future Part II. Fantastic. Contact. How can you not love something Carl Sagan had a hand in? And Forrest Gump. What a story. The only person who didn’t seem to like it was Winston Groom. Case in point: on the first page of Groom’s sequel, Gump & Co., Forrest tells readers, “Don’t ever let nobody make a movie of your life’s story,” and, “Whether they get it right or wrong, it don’t matter.” Hot take: Zemeckis turned the original book into a better film.

How Death Becomes Her escaped me remains a mystery. Zemeckis directed this quintessential 90s black comedy starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis and Isabella Rossellini. I hadn’t heard of it until last week. Better late than never.

In 1978, fading actress Madeline Ashton performs in a badly received Broadway musical. Her friend and longtime rival, Helen Sharp, attends with her fiancé, plastic surgeon Ernest Menville, who is immediately smitten. Madeline steals him and marries him. What a bitch!

We meet Helen again seven years later in a psych ward. She is depressed, obsessed and overweight. There is only one thing on her mind: revenge.

Fast forward another seven years. Madeline and Ernest are rich but miserable. They live in a mansion filled with everything except love. Madeline is struggling with aging, while Ernest has become an alcoholic reconstructive mortician. Then, hi-ho, Helen re-enters the picture. She has written a book and she is hot now. Take that, Madeline. Helen tries to steal Ernest back, and Madeline rushes off for a beauty treatment with the mysterious Lisle Von Rhuman.

Lisle gives Madeline a potion that makes her look twenty years younger. Back home, Madeline argues with Ernest, who pushes her down the stairs and breaks her neck. Ernest calls Helen in a panic, but Madeline soon pops back up. Quite a potion. Where can I get this stuff?

Long story short, Helen had already taken the potion years earlier. She eventually makes up with Madeline. Once the two discover that eternal youth and beauty require ongoing upkeep, they try to persuade Ernest to take the potion too, so he can keep performing touch-ups using his reconstructive mortician skill set.

Honestly, what a ball. I would not have appreciated Death Becomes Her in the 90s. It speaks to me now, though. It is not a particularly deep film, but it offers entertaining commentary on vanity and on how hard some people cling to their looks.

The special effects were great; Death Becomes Her wouldn’t have worked without them.  This was the first film to use CGI skin texture. For that and other reasons, it won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. If someone could find a way to pull it off, this would make an excellent stage play.