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From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: SHE-DEVIL
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00679
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Date: 11 Dec 89 13:33:20 GMT
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				    SHE-DEVIL
		       A film review by Jeff Sullivan
			Copyright 1989 Jeff Sullivan

     SHE-DEVIL is the new "comedy" starring Roseanne Barr, Meryl Streep, and Ed
Begley, Jr.  It's about a frumpy housewife (Barr) who loses her husband
(Begley) to a glamorous romance novelist (Streep).  She vows to get her revenge
on her straying hubby, which is what the rest of the movie is about.

     It's a fairly dark piece, and although in general I enjoy dark humor, I
found it to be unsatisfying.  Point number one is that the laughs were too few
and far between.  If the audienced laughed loudly at some bits, it was only
because there was little to laugh at in between.

     Point number two: The story is also fundamentally unsatisfying because it
is unsympathetic.  While Barr's character was certainly wronged, the level of
her revenge, and the basic mean-spiritedness of the response so overwhelm the
story that both humor and sympathy are crushed beneath its heavy heel.  There
is really no one to root for in SHE-DEVIL, although, in the final analysis, it
seems that Begley and Streep are the ones who were wronged.

     On the performance side, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by
both Streep and Barr.  Streep demonstrated a certain flair for comedy that I
had not suspected, although she could clearly use more practice.  Barr also
surprised me, more so than Streep in fact, because her acting here was quite
competent.  I did not see, as I expected, any of the "Roseanne"isms coming
through.  Not once did I feel like she has inserted her schtick into the
script.

     If I had to give this movie a grade, it'd be a C-.  It tries, performs
fairly well, but has fundamentally unsound material to work with.  I would not
personally recommend this movie to most people, but if you've got a hankering
for some mean-spirited fun, or if you love Streep, Begley, or Barr, then give
it a go.  But try to hit it at a bargain.

--
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Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu   DELPHI: JSULLIVAN	| University of Southern California