Metacritic-Rezensionen

This is a story which, in other hands, could have simply been an all-female slasher movie, but Barbet Schroeder, who produced and directed it, has a mordant humor that pushes the material over the top. It is a slasher movie, and a little more.

Schroeder's refusal to choose moral sides gives the psychological confrontation between the women the kind of weird, mutually accepted form of diseased codependency that Claus and Sunny von Bulow shared in his previous film, Reversal of Fortune. In Single White Female, Schroeder leaves the subtext unresolved, but manages to strike a very raw nerve.

A clever, by-the-numbers gothic thriller. Single White Female is entertaining claptrap.

Single White Female is Mr. Schroeder's bid to compete in the mass market, and there's no reason he shouldn't succeed. The film is smooth, entertaining and believably sophisticated. It has far more sound psychological underpinnings than other movies of its type.

Even though Single White Female is more second-rate, knife-stabbing psycho drivel, it's no pain to sit through. It looks great, for one thing. It has two fabulous faces -- Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It's also funny, sexy, suspenseful and, yes, utterly stupid.

Fluffy thriller, with moments of unintentional humour.

Despite excellent lead performances and numerous memorable scenes, this still feels like two different movies in one.

Don Roos's script for Single White Female, from the 1990 potboiler SWF Seeks Same, by John Lutz, is as empty as a hack's head. Schroeder goes through the motions — the movie is elegantly made — but this synthetic Hollywood package panders shamelessly to the baser instincts.

Schroeder signposts the imminent homicidal carnage right from the start (stay out of that laundry room!). If his two leads are adequate to the slick mechanisms of a formulaic thriller, neither they nor Don Roos' script (based on the novel by John Lutz) offer any original insights into insatiable emotional dependence.

A stylishly shot thriller with several hair-raising moments.