Review of Single White Female (1992) by Spencer S — 19 Feb 2014

When it comes to female killers in movies, there aren't nearly as many names that come to mind as the men. It usually consists of Countess Zaleska in "Dracula's Daughter," Debbie Salt in "Scream 2" or Catherine Tramell in "Basic Instinct." But "Single White Female" is often overlooked; even the characters in "Scream" didn't seem to know about this movie. What the hell? But this is a very mature horror/thriller, much better than the crap you would see every day on Lifetime. It's not just about a horrible person that does horrible things, it's about someone's disturbed mind and how it responds to awful circumstances.

The movie stars Bridget Fonda as a New York City software designer named Allison "Allie" Jones who is left living on her own in an apartment when she discovers that her fiancé Sam (Steven Weber) has cheated on her. She's afraid to live alone, so she places an ad for a roommate; she finds Hedra "Hedy" Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and though she is slightly needy, she's also very friendly and they start living together. It all seems fine; she helps fix Allie's sink, gives her a shoulder to cry on over Sam, she brings home a little dog and confides in Allie how she was supposed to be a twin, but the twin was stillborn. I actually like these initial scenes of them being friendly because you're not really expecting anything horrific to occur; it just seems like a common friendship.

But then it seems like Allie and Sam are patching things up, which means they're bound to start living together again, which Hedy is clearly not happy about. She makes every attempt to make Sam look bad, and then begins to dress her clothes and hairstyle just like Allie. As you might expect, Allie is increasingly unedged by Hedy's erratic behavior, as she eventually finds out that Hedy's real name is Ellen Besch, that she hid letters from Sam and that she actually lost her twin sister in an accident when she was nine years old.

The plot points that take place after these revelations I'm going to let you discover for yourself, but I will say that they are very well executed. I personally think Jennifer Jason Leigh is very good as Hedy; I think she is quite underused as an actress in general. She's very raw and realistic in any of her films. She just always has this look of earnest on her face, and she's certainly likeable, even in movies like this, because it doesn't feel like she's faking anything. It never looks like a performance to me; she's just giving her all into any role she takes. There are movies in which you must fear the villain, and you must never be able to identify with the villain. But other movies have the villain as a main character, so he or she has to be fully developed so that when they become this villainous persona, you have to be able to believe it; I do. This is a woman that feels abandoned by those she has confided in; she feels guilty that she is alive while her sister died. We feel sympathy for her, but we also come to realize the dangerous lengths she will go to, to have someone by her side. Bridget Fonda is also quite good as Allie; I don't have nearly as much to say, but she also comes across as realistic in her feelings of loneliness but also in the strength she portrays as a character.

Now what don't I like about this film? Well, mostly any scene that doesn't have both Allie and Hedy just feels like filler. Sam is a douche most of the time, and I thoroughly despised fashion house owner Mitchell Myerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), who hires Allie but not before manipulating her into lowering her cost on the basis that his colleagues will only consider her based on his word, and then turns out to be a pervert that tries to take advantage of her. He just feels unneeded, just there so he'll get his comeuppance before the end of the movie; he does get a minor moment of redemption towards the end, so I guess it's not that bad. The only supporting character I really liked was Allie's gay upstairs neighbor Graham Knox (Peter Friedman). I'm not sure why; I guess it's because he speaks his mind so much that I laughed a little bit. Why exactly do we have the scene where Allie follows Hedy into an underground sex club? I don't think we needed something that freakish to see that Hedy was disturbed; practically everything else gave us that hint. And the climax, while thrilling at times, did seem to go on for a while.

Anyway, I like this movie quite a lot, not just for what happens, but for what it's about. In my opinion, it's a very mature look at what happens when a traumatic event occurs to someone, and they refuse to seek help for it. It doesn't feel exploitative, forced or manipulative (like 2011's "The Roommate"--same concept, but really bad). It strikes a fine chord of sympathy, suspense and dread.