Death becomes her - 1992

I never liked this film, for the simple reason that it’s unsettling. It can be fun, if you’re not disturbed by the two dead, crumbling bodies. It was certainly something noteworthy, regarding the special effects. Even now they look pretty good. The message is good too, sure, because the male protagonist Ernest (Bruce Willis) even while he was facing almost certain death he still refused to drink the potion of immortality, and he said wise things like: people around me will still grow old and die, and what if I get bored, I could never go back, I don’t want to live forever. After he finally escaped, he created a new life for himself: a wife, children and grandchildren and a great work that will make him immortal in the best of ways, the only true one. The only reason I dislike it is because these women upset me, disturb me, give me the creeps, make me physically sick. 

The story: Madeleine (Meryl Streep) and Helen (Goldie Hawn) are old friends turned worst enemies. Helen hates Madeleine for always stealing her boyfriends just to hurt her, which is true, and Madeleine hates Helen because she grew up feeling refused, unwanted, treated as if she was not at her level. The only thing they’ve got in common is their obsession with youth and beauty. Separately they both seek Lisa (Isabella Rossellini)’s help and drink her potion. Full of hatred, Helen wants to kill Madeleine, but she doesn’t die because of the potion. Well, not really because she walks and talks, but she is clinically dead, cold and without heartbeat. When he realizes this, Ernest is shocked but thinks of a miracle. When Helen shows up at their house, Madeleine shoots her with a rifle, opening a big hole in her stomach. They think she’s dead, obviously, because they don’t know she drank the potion too. After she’s back on her feet, the two women fight vigorously, talk for a while and make peace. At this point Ernest realizes that miracles have no part in all this, and only wants to escape from them, but he’s a nice guy and accepts to take care of their bodies before going, because well, Madeleine’s neck won’t stay as it should, and Helen has a big hole you can see through. Ernest makes them beautiful again, but now they realize they need him around, so knock him out and take him to Lisa hoping she’ll convince him to drink the potion and be with them forever. He refuses, as I said, runs away, ends up in a very bad situation, still refuses preferring death to being a monster, but even after a long scary fall he manages to survive. He falls into a pool, gets up and goes away. Madeleine and Helen realize they need to stay together to help each other with their bodies’ maintenance. We switch to 37 years later, at Ernest’s funeral, where we see how they managed without him: they look awful, terrible, their faces are like bad masks and their legs don’t walk properly. Also, when Helen’s about to fall down the stairs and Madeleine appears to enjoy what’s about to happen instead of helping her, Helen grabs her and they both fall down and their bodies break into various pieces and still they’re ‘alive’ and who knows what will be of them afterwards, because the movie ends here. For some reason this makes me physically sick.

In Italy: La morte ti fa bella