I honestly find Single White Female
to be more sad than scary. It's a good movie, yes, but I can't
imagine losing sleep over it. It probably doesn't help that the
villain is the most relatable character while most of the others are
movie clichés, giving me no real reason to care if they live or die.
We have Allie (Bridget Fonda) the single woman whose boyfriend
cheated on her, who has the gay best friend in Graham (Peter
Friedman), Sam (Steven Weber), the boyfriend who wants to win her
back, and Mitch (Stephen Tobolowsky), the sleazy businessman who
threatens to drive away customers if she doesn't sleep with him.
Then there's Hedy (Jennifer Jason
Leigh), a character driven to madness and obsession by the fact that
her twin sister drowned when they were nine. Hedy is pulled into the
story when Allie looks for a roommate after kicking Sam out. Hedy is
friendly, outgoing, and cares deeply about Allie... to the point of
creepy obsession. When Sam tries to win Allie back, Hedy steals
letters and deletes voice mails to get in the way. She also changes
her hair to match Allie's, and attempts on some occasions to pass
herself off as Allie.
This escalation doesn't happen quickly,
which is a mistake many movies would make. Hedy doesn't seem scary
at first. In fact, the first time she impersonates Allie it's on the
phone to Mitch to get him to back off by threatening him. The movie
doesn't show her as a monster, but as someone incredibly lonely
looking for a familial relationship she lost.
The build-up is probably one of the
best I've ever seen. She goes from loving and affectionate, to a
nuisance, to a creep, and finally to dangerous. Usually these
escalations are in response to some event, such as Sam's return to
Allie, Allie discovering that she had lied about her real name and
past (she falsely claimed her twin was stillborn), and being told
that she would need to leave. However, at no point does the film
make her out to be a monster, simply a troubled person.
Certainly, I think everyone can
understand what Hedy wants. Even if we were never twins, everyone
who’s ever felt alone can imagine having that kind of closeness,
and then losing it. Hedy had something valuable taken from her, and
wants it back.
There's one scene I feel I should
address, simply because it does create a problem in discussing the
movie. Hedy tries to “prove” that Sam will always be unfaithful
by pretending to be Allie, and performing oral sex on him without his
consent. He figures out who she actually is halfway through. It's
debatable from what's shown whether he actually allowed her to
finish, or was simply not able to put up physical resistance, but
either way he never gave consent.
While it's made clear that what Hedy
did was wrong, it's treated as a crime against Allie rather than Sam.
Sam's facial expressions and body language do give the appearance
that he feels violated, but at no point is it stated that he was
raped. This scene makes it hard for me to justify my sympathy for
Hedy, so the best I can do is to say that I blame cultural ignorance
and double-standards concerning female-on-male rape, rather than the
fictional character who acts out this cultural misconception in a
movie.
The scene that stands out the most for
me in terms of Hedy's development was the one in which she receives a
phone call from her father who's been alerted to her location by
Allie. The phone call is brief and she hangs up on him, but he
assures her “no more doctors” if she comes home. This, if
nothing else, gives us some idea of why she's hiding her real name;
she's afraid of the family that tried to “fix” her.
This movie would be a classic if not
for literally every other character and actor in it. Jennifer Jason
Leigh seemed to have been under the impression that she was in Oscar
bait, while everyone else thought they were phoning in a paycheck.
Her performance adapts to every situation, as she manages to
simultaneously switch personae like a chameleon, while still letting
us know what she's really feeling.
This movie isn't something I would tell
you to rush out and watch, but it's definitely worth your time.
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