Lenguaje corporal

Heather Locklear and Linda Purl both give it their all in this made for TV Single White Female rip-off which finds Locklears executive terrorized by Purl's devious secretary who wants more than her job - she wants her entire life. She steals her boyfriend, makes a copy of her house key, and starts killing anyone who gets in her way. It never reaches the right level of campy histrionics that makes movies like this memorable and entertaining, but it's fun enough to have on in the background.

When Betsy Frieze (Heather Locklear) is promoted to business executive of the Orpheus Corporation, she feels pressed and harassed by her boss Charles Stella (Edward Albert) since she is the first woman to be promoted to a management position. Her relationship with her boyfriend Victor Keaton (James Acheson) is affected by her overwork, but Betsy is helped by her assistant Norma Suffield (Linda Purl), who is replacing the former secretary that vanished. The stressed Betsy does not realize that that Norma is a woman obsessed in her position and is jeopardizing her work and her personal life.

"Body Language" (1992) is a thriller made for TV in the same year of "Single White Female" that has many elements in common. The plot has many clichés and flaws and is totally predictable since the viewer knows the intention of Norma from the very beginning, but also entertains. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Corpo de Mulher" ("A Body of Woman")

Heather Locklear and Linda Purl star in this interesting, suspenseful and stylish film about betrayal and extreme competition. I watched this on TV and found it was an above average made-for-television movie that held my interest till the very end of it. Locklear's character may have been miscast, yet she still plays her part to perfection. And Purl is amazing as the psycho secretary that plagues Locklear's character.

Overall, I'd give this 3.5/5 stars. Good viewing, but just needs a little plot-fixing. I love the end sequence with the crystal paperweight. I actually found it creepy for some reason.

Norma Suffield (Linda Purl) is the personal assistant to Betsy Freize (Heather Locklear), the `first female executive in the history of the Orpheus Capital Corporation'. However Norma appears to have killed Holly Anthony who was to be Betsy's assistant, since Norma is desperate to be in the company's executive program, though it is said she `has the right attitude but not the right stuff'. She forms a fixation on Betsy, copying her wardrobe, her hairstyle, dating her boyfriend Victor Keaton (James Acheson) who of course thinks Betsy works too much, and even using Betsy's toothbrush (ick!).

Although lit deliberately unflatteringly, Purl adds some odd touches to Norma - at one point imitating Locklear's intonation and vanity - and demonstrating schizophrenic behavior, without any awareness. When Victor tells her `I think I need a little bit of space' Purl's `What?' is a laugh of derision and disbelief. Locklear's emotional breakdowns reveal the lack of depth she has compared to Purl's displays of anger, notably when she snuffs out large candles with her hands.

The teleplay by Dan Gurskis and Brian Ross makes Betsy unintentionally patronising, by having her include the commas and full stops in her dictated letters. Orpheus is a company who stoops to employ the sleazy smirking Charles Stellar (Edward Albert) who tells Betsy `If you want to survive here without your pantyhose down, you better pull ‘em up'. The dialogue ranges from oblique with Detective Gordon (Gary Bisig) investigating Holly's murder `Right now I don't think anything. That just means I have to think everything', to witty when Gordon asks Betsy `The competition for upward mobility is fairly cutthroat, isn't it' and she replies `Yes, but not literally'.

Director Arthur Allan Seidelman seems to have his own kind of fixation - closeups of shoes, the kind that female corporate players wear that accompany short skirts and long legs. However he he does have a talent for cross-cutting between two different emotional states. If the slow motion he uses for Norma's knifing someone seems like a means of covering up Purl's inability to perform the act convincingly, and the titled camera-work to tell us Norma is irrevocably unbalanced by the climax a little too obvious, there is an amusing edit from the discovery of the dead Holly in the stationary cupboard by Betsy to Norma in bed with Victor.

There was another "Body Language," I think, with Tom Berenger and Heidi Schantz. It was a far better movie than this one simply because we got to see so much of Heidi Schantz. Gratuitous nudity and soft-core carnality would have helped this. It certainly needed something.

The plot, you've seen before in one or another guise. One woman, envious of another's beauty and success, begins to imitate her, seduces her estranged lover, and goes nuts and turns into a slasher or something. In my humble opinion the best version is "Single White Female" simply because we got to see so much of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Lee.

This is a chick flick par excellence. There is a scene in which the newly hired executive, Locklear, sends her assistant, Purl, to Locklear's apartment to fetch some important item that had been forgotten at home. Purl enters the apartment and we find out for the first time that there is more to her than the simple role of helpful assistant. She creeps around Locklear's place, fingering the furniture, going through the drawers, reading the address book, examining the photos, lying on the bed. The scene is a perfect expression of two chiefly feminine fantasy roles. (1) The victim. Poor Locklear is hard at work in her office while a stranger uncovers her private life. (2) The snoop. Oh, how we love finding out someone else's secrets. And then there's Purl's treachery, insinuating herself into the busy Locklear's agenda. The afternoon soaps seem to be filled with these Iago-like female figures.

I don't mean to be insulting in calling it a chick flick. But that's the audience it's aimed at, and it's the writer's deliberate decision. The men are clumsy stereotypes. They don't speak or act like men. They speak and act like women. The dialogue is enough to turn your brain into creme brulee. First man: "So how are you doing with Bitsy?" Second man: "Well, we're having some problems." First man: "You need some space." Second: "She's the only one I want." First: "You need to get some perspective, pal. Believe me, there are some real lookers out there." Later on Locklear and estranged boyfriend have a chat that goes something like: "We need to talk." "Yes, I've been thinking things over. We need to talk." "Would you like to come in and talk?"

Note to writers: Men don't TALK like that. Not if they're straight, anyway. Oh, there is one obvious straight guy in this movie, Edward Albert, who represents another kind of stereotype, the chauvinist uncaring boss. He's reptilian in his evilhood. He seems to have undergone a hair transplant and chin tuck somewhere along the line, calls his women colleagues and subordinate "honey," comes on to Locklear one night when they're alone at the office. She spurns his advances of course. Later he chastizes her at a meeting and tells her, "Believe me, honey, if you can't pull your pantyhose down in this business you'd damn well better keep them pulled up." (It's okay, though, because he gets a well-deserved lobotomy with a crystal paperweight at the end.)

Locklear's estranged boyfriend doesn't have much of a role. He's handsome but you can tell with one look that he's not going to "be there" for Locklear when she needs him. He's too pensive, too tired. And that's understandable, what with his having had to say lines like, "You're not here with me now. You're still back in that office. Maybe it's time to give it a rest."

After a couple of murders Purl goes berserk and at the climax there is a fight in the empty office building between her and Locklear. The two blondes in their tiny skirts roll bloodlessly over and over each other on the carpet. This is clearly the best part of the movie. It's not only wryly sexual but it's relaxing at the same time because there isn't one piece of information given to us in the scene that wasn't completely predictable. Does Locklear have a pair of scissors to defend herself against the raving paper-weight-wielding Purl? Do the scissors get knocked out of her hand? Is there an insert shot of the scissors bouncing away along the floor? Does Locklear make a grab for the scissors? Does Purl manage to prevent Locklear's hand from reaching the scissors? Is there a UFO conspiracy to subjugate the planet Earth?

Maybe it's time to give it a rest.