X
- 1989
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
- 1989
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
Summary A surprisingly resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.
Directed By: Susan Seidelman
Written By: Fay Weldon, Barry Strugatz, Mark R. Burns
- 1989
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
- 1989
- PG-13
- Orion Pictures
- 1 h 39 m
She-Devil
45
6.1
Where to Watch
Summary A surprisingly resourceful housewife vows revenge on her husband when he begins an affair with a wealthy romance novelist.
Directed By: Susan Seidelman
Written By: Fay Weldon, Barry Strugatz, Mark R. Burns
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 Critic Reviews
45
24% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
43% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
33% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 Critic Reviews
45
24% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
43% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
33% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
The casting is a real coup, with Barr going her everywoman TV persona one better by breaking the big screen heroine mold, and Streep blowing away any notion that she can’t be funny.
Barr could have made an easy, predictable and dumb comedy at any point in the last couple of years. Instead, she took her chances with an ambitious project - a real movie. It pays off, in that Barr demonstrates that there is a core of reality inside her TV persona, a core of identifiable human feelings like jealousy and pride, and they provide a sound foundation for her comic acting.
Vulgarity, of course, has its honored place in comedy, but in She-Devil such moments merely seem grim and desperate - substitutes for the real laughs the film has failed to discover.
As feminist polemic, She-Devil is dubious indeed.
Director Susan Seidelman takes aim at the box office with the team of movie queen Meryl Streep and TV slob queen Roseanne Barr. She misfires. Streep gets all the jokes, and Barr, looking stranded, plays it straight. Worse, nobody’s bothered to write them a big scene together. But for a while you can see the possibilities.
The movie's message is murky and out of whack. Seidelman's style of comedy trashes everyone. The movie's jokes, which cover everything from dead rodents to geriatric incontinence, are cartoony and sour and misanthropic. And the flukiest thing is that they're misogynic too. It's hard to imagine that a man could have been as ruthlessly coldblooded as Seidelman has been about Ruth's unattractiveness. The network of women workers that Ruth establishes to help her nail her husband runs on pettiness and rancor -- it's a coalition of resentment. In "She-Devil," Seidelman divides the world of women between the envied and the envious. She has a message for the Ruths of the world, and it's not a pretty one. She tells them that the best they can hope for is payback.
She-Devil is insipid. It is a hustle-bustle comic fantasy that insists on shoveling forced humor down viewers' throats. The movie is devoid of charm. [8 Dec 1989, p.6]
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
6.1
38% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
63% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
6.1
38% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
63% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
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