La morte ti fa bella

Robert Zemeckis is not my favorite director, "Contact" notwithstanding. There's nothing wrong with his movies; they're just fluffy. "Back to the Future" had an exhilarating two-billion-thread plot, but a disappointing moral climax-Marty's reengineered past creates an alternate present where his family is wealthy and the thing he covets most, a 4x4, is in the garage. (Such was our national mood--blame Reagan.) And "Forrest Gump", a decent and poignant melodrama, tried to be a satire too but instead of knowing commentary it delivered cliches (John Lennon on the Dick Cavett show answers questions using only lyrics from "Imagine"; an anti-war protester at a Washington rally makes his case before the crowd with the argument "Viet F...in' Nam!").

On the other hand, Zemeckis directed this, one of the great black comedies of the '90s. "Death Becomes Her" is a delicious, well-observed satire about makeup, makeup and more makeup. In Hollywood, if you're old you're run out of town on a rail and Meryl Streep's character is horrified that her body is going south. Streep has great comic timing (this role and her role in "Postcards from the Edge" are too-infrequent examples of it) and she makes a believable ogre of Madeline Ashton, a Streisand-esque demon. As the film begins in 1978 Madeline is onstage in a Broadway musical version of "Sweet Bird of Youth", hilariously retooled as an unironic paean to her girlish looks (she sings the unforgettable "I See Me" to her own reflection). Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and her fiancee Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) are in the audience, and after the show Madeline greets old friend Helen backstage, and promptly steals Ernest away from her for marriage. Flash forward seven years; Helen is overweight, living alone with dozens of cats and endlessly rewatching movie star Madeline being murdered in a scene from one of her films. She is evicted and arrested but in jail she hits on an elegant solution for eliminating Madeline from her mind: eliminating her.

Flash forward to 1992 Los Angeles; has-been Madeline is caking on makeup and scheduling multiple face-lifts to fend off the inevitable. Ernest, formerly a plastic surgeon with a promising career, is now a mortician who dresses and retouches the best-looking corpses in the business. (His secret: spraypaint.) No sooner has Madeline rediscovered a drop-dead gorgeous Helen--looking impossibly young and voluptuous at her own 50th birthday party--then she panics and becomes desperate for a quick fix for her fading looks. She ends up in a mysterious Hollywood mansion with a sorceress (Isabella Rossellini) who gives her a magic potion granting eternal youth. Meanwhile Helen seduces Ernest and enlists his help in murdering Madeline. But comes a twist (literally) and suddenly Madeline gets a looks at immortality, and her own rear end, following a nasty fall down a staircase.

All the actors shine here. Goldie Hawn is hilarious. Bruce Willis, an underrated comic actor, is goofier than he's been since "Moonlighting". Sydney Pollack does a virtuoso one-take cameo as a doctor who loses it after examining a dead-but-still-breathing Madeline. There are a lot of twists and surprises, not the least of which is that the FX get some of the biggest laughs. With technology these days being so good FX often slip invisibly into the background, this movie flaunts its CG-manipulated human bodies as something to goggle at.

Zemeckis' usual trademarks are here, including elaborate tracking shots in expositional scenes and the use of mirrors to combine on- and off-screen space (in this movie about vanity there is a surplus of mirrors, one in practically every scene). The movie was written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp (they cowrote "Apartment Zero"; Koepp wrote "Jurassic Park" and its sequel). The mordant, sour-as-kumquats score is by Alan Silvestri ("Back to the Future", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"). The special effects were produced by Industrial Light and Magic.

I mean, I doubted this movie at first from the beginning in Broadway. But as it progressed, I was laughing so hard on certain scenes like when Dr. Menville is reporting the murder of Madelyn and she suddenly gets up and starts walking toward him. It was too funny and the effects were so phenomenal. I mean literally. But then again, it won an Oscar for its effects. I mean, the fight scene where the 2 start fighting with shovels and Helen breaks off the metal end of Mad's and she throws it right through her. "Yes! I mean No! Oh Damn!" That scene was just side-splitting. Overall it was a good black comedy and I'd recommend it to anybody. And Robert Zemeckis, I never knew he did such a great movie because he's a head producer for Dark Castle Entertainment and he's done some pretty bad movies from there like Ghost Ship and Thir13en Ghosts. But wow, he has really made an excellent movie.

In 1978, in Broadway, the decadent and narcissist actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) is performing Songbird, based on Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Then she receives her rival Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn), who is an aspiring writer, and her fiancé Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), who is a plastic surgeon, in her dressing-room. Soon Menville calls off his commitment with Helen and marries Madeline. Seven years later, Helen is obese in a psychiatric hospital and obsessed in seeking revenge on Madeline. In 1992, the marriage of Madeline and Menville is finished and he is no longer a surgeon but an alcoholic caretaker.

Out of the blue, they are invited to a party where Helen will release her novel Forever Young and Madeline goes to a beauty shop. The owner gives a business card of the specialist in rejuvenation Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini) to her. When the envious Madeline sees Helen thin in a perfect shape, she decides to seek out Lisle and buys a potion to become young again. Further, she advises that Madeline must take care of her body. Meanwhile Helen seduces Menville and they plot a scheme to kill Madeline. When Madeline comes home, she has an argument Menville and he pushes her from the staircase. She breaks her neck but becomes a living dead. When Helen arrives at Menville's house expecting that Madeline is dead, she is murdered by Madeline. But she also becomes a living dead and they conclude they need Menville to help them to maintain their bodies. But Menville wants to leave them.

"Death Becomes Her" is an American black comedy with excellent special effects even after twenty-three years after the release and great cast. The trash storyline is strange and original and the black humor may not be pleasant for everyone. But there are funny and witty quotes and situations and this film has not aged. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Morte Lhe Cai Bem" ("Death Fits Well to Her")

I never saw "Death Becomes Her" when it first come out because of a review I had read somewhere. The review was dismissive and made a lot of sense, so I decided to give it a miss. What a terrible mistake! This is a movie I would love to see on a big screen. The script is so brilliantly clever. Disguised as a silly comedy there is a world of serious themes executed by a knowing cast. Meryl Streep in particular, playing convincingly an actress without talent. I remember the bad review criticized the writers for setting the story in a rainy, stormy Los Angeles when California was going through a drought. Imagine if a comedy about magic potions should worry about the accuracy of the weather. In fact the Los Angeles of "Death Becomes Her" feels more like Los Angelers than most realistic movies and it does it with nerve and wit. "In 12 years in Los Angeles have you ever seen a neighbor?" screams Meryl to his mousy Bruce. An absolute delight. Other hidden treasures are a cameo from Sidney Pollack and a very funny and very sexy "76 years old" Isabella Rossellini. A new cult classic and a total must.

And the award for the snarkiest woman in history goes to: Meryl Streep! This movie proves that Meryl knows how to play a snarky woman better than almost anyone else. In fact, 80% of this movie is Meryl and Goldie Hawn verbally abusing and emasculating their co-star Bruce Willis. Not a bad plot, honestly.

The other 20% of the film are special effects that stretch and disfigure human bodies in just about every configuration imaginable, the caveat being that the bodies are of people that are still alive and speaking. It sounds grotesque, and at times I was wincing, but overall it was pretty cool to see what they could accomplish.

I'd say that Meryl bitching is delightful at first, but verges on grating by the end. And once you've seen a couple variations of a disfigured body even that can get sort of redundant.

This is a campy horror flick, so I suppose the point was to make it as over-the-top as they could, and I think they managed to do that and then some. Going into this I thought, "oh, this is a standard story about two women fighting over a man! I've seen this type of thing before!". But really, the first thirty-some minutes feel like a complete separate movie from the remainder of it.

It quickly becomes apparent that what you thought this was going in isn't what this is at all. Actually, it's completely different and unexpected and the sheer weirdness of this flick earns it some points.

I was hoping for an alternate ending in which Ernest exposes the society of immortals to the public and a mass media witch hunt ensues, but the actual ending isn't that bad and works well too.