She-Devil

A wife from hell? Sure, but only if you see her through the eyes of her entitled, philandering husband. Look at Ruth (Roseanne Barr, in her film debut) the way Susan Seidelman does, and you’ll see a woman who simply refuses to be confined to a suburban home. That’s exactly where Bob (Ed Begley Jr.) – an accountant working for steamy romance novelist Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep, in her first comedic appearance) – would prefer to keep her, with the kids and the dog. When Bob moves into the writer’s pastel mansion, the abandoned Ruth decides to shed her ill-fitting housewife costume and to shake up the lovers’ lives. After dabbling in screwball comedy (Desperately Seeking Susan) and sci-fi (Making Mr. Right), Seidelman – a filmmaker fond of humor-tinged genre-bending – delivers a revenge movie with a comic edge. Once again, she portrays women breaking free from America’s suburbs in pursuit of independence and fun. She-Devil is the flip side of Death Becomes Her, a story about what might happen if a woman’s rage at a man-made world turned into action. And yes, revenge becomes her, too.