Reviewed by Melissa Antoinette Garza
In my heart, I’m the same girl I was at 11 years old. As such, sometimes I really like lame films simply because they always used to be on television when there were only 13 channels and nothing else on.
She-Devil is one of my guilty pleasures. I am not a Roseanne Barr fan. I find her annoying most of the time. This movie is the exception.
The movie opens as Ruth (Roseanne) asks her husband Bob (Ed Begley Jr.) to go to a business party. There Ruth accidentally spills wine on romance novelist Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep). When Bob runs over to assist, he meets Mary and sparks fly. Soon, he’s in a full fledge affair with her.
The more he sleeps with Mary, the more he criticizes Ruth. One night, as Bob’s overly rude parents come by for dinner, Ruth tells the family about him sleeping around. He leaves and Ruth snaps.
She burns down the house, drops the kids off with Mary and Bob, and changes her name to Rose in order to start a new life. She begins working at the same nursing home that Mary’s mother lives. She replaces sedatives with vitamins which make the elderly so lively that they begin playing soccer. She quickly finds Mary’s mother and encourages her to go live with Mary.
There she meets Hooper (Linda Hunt). At first Hooper is going to turn her in for the vitamins but instead they become friends. Soon they start their own employment agency where they find unwanted women jobs.
Meanwhile, Bob starts messing around with a sexy young bookkeeper that Ruth sent over. His relationship with Mary goes downhill quickly.
Mary soon finds out just as Ruth sets Bob up for stealing money from his clients landing him in jail.This film is an adaptation of the novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil which was written by British feminist Fay Weldon. Unlike the movie, the book is much more of a drama. There is a BBC adaptation which is more faithful to the novel.
That said, you won’t be able to hear the only King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley, if
you watch the BBC version so I’ll go with the American movie in this case. I’d be so happy if Elvis were alive. No one can match his voice or his sheer presence on stage. I miss him. There’s actually an Elvis Presley documentary for classic albums on Netflix that is a good watch.
Overall Rating: 6.5/10 (extra point and a half for Elvis)
