Single White Female (1992)
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Synopsis: Traumatized by the discovery that her live-in fiancé has cheated on her with his ex-wife, Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) decides to find a roommate to share her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. After interviewing candidates, beautiful, sophisticated career woman Allison settles... Traumatized by the discovery that her live-in fiancé has cheated on her with his ex-wife, Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) decides to find a roommate to share her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. After interviewing candidates, beautiful, sophisticated career woman Allison settles on Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a shy, mousy woman who has a hopeless fashion sense, and seemingly, a heart of gold. At first she's an ideal roommate, asking Allison for advice and attempting to emulate her cosmopolitan style. But Hedy's adulation grows more and more disturbing as Allison realizes that her new roommate has a dark side. Barbet Schroeder (BARFLY, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) directed this taut psychological thriller. Jason Leigh is mesmerizing as the disturbed Hedy; Fonda is well cast as the unwitting victim of another's psychosis. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Steven Weber, Peter Friedman, Stephen Tobolowsky
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Reviews
The climax is a long time coming, and you can't help feeling that the adaptation would work better as a play.
There's something dehumanizing about 90s horror thrillers that all but defeats the film's impulses toward seriousness; no matter how much the filmmakers work to make the characters real, the genre contrives to turn them into functions and props.
A stylishly shot thriller with several hair-raising moments. Considering that it's directed by Barbet Schroeder and stars Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, it's also a major disappointment.
Despite excellent lead performances and numerous memorable scenes, this still feels like two different movies in one.
As psychological thriller, it has a good beginning but poor ending. Even so, there eerie scenes, such as the one in which the women stand in front of the mirror examining themselves--it recalls Ingmar Bergman's Persona, also dealing with role reversal
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.
This should be trash, but Fonda and Leigh's performances keep things believably chilling.
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posted by Jen Yamato September 27, 2005
They've kept it under wraps for weeks now, but another Hollywood pair has announced news of their nuptials. ...


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