Cheap She-Devil (DVD) (Meryl Streep, Roseanne) (Susan Seidelman) Price

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Customer Reviews of She-Devil

Heavenly Performances ... Hellish Script
Despite hilarious performances from Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, and Ed Begley, Jr., this film adaptation of Fay Weldon's "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" is sure to disappoint viewers who were lucky enough to catch the earlier British mini-series based on the same novel. The problem here is with the script, which doesn't really develop Roseanne's character as fully as it might. In the television adaptation, Ruth Patchett was an even more pathetic and disempowered character whose plot of vengeance against her cheating husband and his mistress was carried out with a certain sense of reluctance and a twinge of regret. This extra shading made Ruth more sympathetic and the comedy much, much darker. Here the tone is lighter, sometimes veering off course into slapstick, such as the speeded-up sequence in which Roseanne and Linda Hunt remodel the building that will become their place of business.

Still, as noted earlier, the cast is uniformly excellent. Meryl Streep has a field day playing a manipulative homewrecking she-wolf dressed in (pink) lamb's clothing, and Roseanne is a hoot as the hopelessly frumpy housewife who finally decides she's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. Ed Begley, Jr., completes this unholy trio as the unlikely object of both women's desire. Indeed, a lot of the fun comes from the incongruity of casting these three actors in the same movie.

The DVD offers a crisp widescreen video transfer and generally excellent sound, and includes the Original Theatrical Trailer. Definitely worth a look for the performances, but do keep your eye out for the mini-series, which hopefully will be released on DVD sometime in the future.

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wacky comedy
Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep battle it out in the wacky comedy SHE-DEVIL.

Mary Fisher (Streep) is a romance novelist who lives in a pink palace by the sea. Ruth Patchett (Barr) is a frumpy housewife with a bad attitude. They have one thing in common - Bob( Ed Begley Jr) - Mary's lover and Ruth's husband!

Ruth decides to get even with her louse of a spouse, so she blows up the house, and frames Bob for embezzlement. Along the way Ruth also digs up Mary's mother in a decaying nursing home, and decides a "family reunion" is needed....!

Based on the novel "The Life and Loves of the She-Devil" by Fay Weldon, this is a charming film. If you loved DEATH BECOMES HER you will flip over SHE-DEVIL.

Also starring Linda Hunt and Sylvia Miles.

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Love the movie, Can't stand Roseanne!
I have always loved this movie for it's blatant campiness and Meryl Streep! She is what makes this film. Ed Begley Jr. though good at his role is so incredibly unappealing that it makes it totally hard to believe that anyone besides someone who looks like Roseanne's character could possibly fall for him. He is about as horrid looking as it gets and to snag the leadinng male role must had meant he either had friends in high places or no one else wanted the role. Havne't a clue how they got Meryl to do this, but thank god she did! Roseanne is supposed to be the victim and we're supposed to feel for her, but she's so horrid that no one really cares what happens to her. Besides the extremely poor casting of the wife and husband this is really a funny film and its all due to Meryl's character.