[Film Review] Black Widow (1987), Single White Female (1992) and Copycat (1995)
Every once in a while, the Dream Factory bundles two prominent leading ladies together in a thriller, here is a triad of them cranked out within one decade, from 1987 to 1995. The sextet of performers is: Debra Winger and
Theresa Russell in Bob Rafelson's BLACK WIDOW, Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Barbet Schroeder's SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter in Jon Amiel's COPYCAT.
Each film presents a very different relationship between these pairs. In BLACK WIDOW, Winger's desk-bound Justice Department agent Alexandra pertinaciously bird-dogs Russell's ruthless husband-killer Catharine, even though the case is not within her remit. She even gives up her job just to be near Catharine, who is husband-hunting in Hawaii. They become fast friends and their sisterly affinity almost takes on an incipient sapphic erotism (very understated though), which could be accounted for what makes Alexandra tick.
She is driven by a strange fascination for Catharine, voluntarily putting herself between her and her new prey, French hotelier Paul Nuytten (Frey), only to be used as an incentive to prompt him to marry Catharine, a rather cunning move on the latter's part. Catharine is no ordinary femme fatale, her friendship with Alexandra might be plastic, her fang isn't, psychology-and-toxicology savvy, she can "almost" alway gets she wants. "Almost" is the operative word here. Her only misstep is that when she could do away with Alexandra in a freaky scuba-diving accident (or with malice aforethought), she thinks better of it. Chances are if Alexandra comes clean to Paul, it will upset Catharine's apple cart, that is exactly what happens, hubris is her Achilles heel. Although, the twist in the end feels more like a deus ex machina than an effectively engineered entrapment. Winger and Russell call forth enough appeal as both are cognizant of each other's disguises and true motives, with the latter leaving a more emphatically inscrutable patina of mystique that pips the former's conflicted interiority.
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE has NYC's grandiose, beaux-arts Ansonia edifice as its main setting (with the interior of its apartment colored in a dark blue, sinister register as if it is underwater), where lives Alison Jones (Fonda, in her pixie-cut fashion plate glamour), a natty software designer. After kicking out her unfaithful boyfriend Sam (Weber), she is charmed by a new roommate Hedy Carlson (Leigh), a dowdy, seemingly unaggressive girl who will, in due time, become her worst nightmare. Hedy's obsession of Alison shows evidence of genuine psychopathology, losing the sense of boundary, becoming clingy and possessive, imitating Alison's wardrobe and coiffure, a deranged Hedy will stop at nothing to turn Alison into her dead twin sister. Along the way, noisome members of the sterner sex will be duly if unrealistically snuffed until it is down to a catfight between these two besties to duke it out.
Schroeder's film is camper than BLACK WIDOW, eroticizing Leigh's voluptuousness in the buff, satirizing Alison's man-over-bestie fickleness, and a girl-on-girl kiss is brazenly effected as an impromptu means of self-preservation. But if Rafelson's film is a battle of wits between two intelligent women, here the suspense and thrill germinates from the physical manifestation of murderous intent, plus who doesn't want to watch Jennifer Jason Leigh go mental manically?
Jon Amiel's COPYCAT has no levity in its molecules, it means business, a dead-serious police procedural not above baring its savage teeth with a serial killer named Peter Foley (McNamara, shamming pretty-boy innocuousness) wreaking havoc in San Francisco, outrageously taunting the police by imitating the murders of previous notorious killers like Albert DeSalvo, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, among others. Two heroines are convened together, local homicide detective M.J. Monahan (Hunter) and Dr. Helen Hudson (Weaver), an expert of criminal psychology, especially as a profiler of serial killers, are forced to work together to crack the knotty case.
But the catch is that Helen suffers from agoraphobia after barely surviving a vicious attack in the film's prologue, in the hands of Daryll Lee Cullum (an uglified Connick mimicking a menacing look), a deranged murderer currently sitting on the death row. So while M.J. and her partner Reuben (Mulroney, a knockout in his prime) diligently investigate the killer's M.O., a house-bound Helen becomes a sitting duck, especially when a connection between Peter and Daryll Lee is established. During the climax, Helen is coerced to relive the ordeal in the film's opening and tasked to grapple with the incapacitating agoraphobia. In the event, she and M.J. must save each other and the latter ensures that she will not make the same mistake twice.
COPYCAT makes for a rapt viewing chiefly because of the excellent performances from the two leads. Weaver has that rousing stoical manfulness that could cow any man into capitulation, yet there is no trace of pretension or arrogance can be read on Helen's face, alternating eloquently between a professional and a victim, and sharing genuine bonhomie with Hunter, who makes a good fist of complementing Weaver's lofty stature with a dogged intensity both in her comportment and her action. At the same M.J. must ward off the micro-aggression being the only female inspector among her colleagues. Hunter navigates a delicate but totally credible way to imprint Helen's alterity on viewer's head space without falling back on stereotypes or platitudes (just watch the way she worms the truth out of a fellow policeman about who has arrived first on the crime scene, she is not just whip-smart, she has incomparable tact as well).
Interestingly, in both SINGLE WHITE FEMALE and COPYCAT, the gay best friend trope is emplaced but fortunately with disparate outcomes. Also, both movies feature a prominent presence of computers, heralding the upcoming digital era while reminding us how technology rapidly progresses (Helen needs two desktop PCs, one for playing chess, another for online chat, wtf?). Unavoidably, those films also betray signs of its time, for example Far-Eastern descendants are portrayed as stock repugnant characters in both BLACK WIDOW and COPYCAT, James Hong's venal shamus in the former is especially created with a pungent distaste. That said, for what it is worth, those three films establish a cogent case of the complexity of female relations, may it be rapport, admiration, obsession, jealousy, or sheer enmity, and they all pass the Bechdel test with flying color.
referential entries: Curtis Hanson's THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (1992, 7.0/10); Adrian Lyne's FATAL ATTRACTION (1987, 6.4/10); Barbet Schroeder's REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (1990, 7.4/10); Bob Rafelson's FIVE EASY PIECES (1970, 8.1/10); Nicolas Roeg's INSIGNIFICANCE (1985, 6.5/10); Joe Wright's THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (2021, 6.4/10).
Title:BlackWidow
Year:1987
Country:USA
Language:English, French
Genre:Crime, Drama, Mystery
Director: Bob Rafelson
Screenwriter: Ronald Nass
Music:Michael Small
Cinematography:Conrad L. Hall
Editor: John Bloom
Cast:
Debra Winger
Theresa Russell
Sami Frey
Nicol Williamson
Terry O'Quinn
James Hong
D.W. Moffett
Lois Smith
Diane Ladd
Dennis Hopper
Danny Kamekona
Leo Rossi
Mary Woronov
Rutanya Alda
David Hamet
Rating:6.8/10
Title:Single White Female
Year:1992
Country:USA
Language:English
Genre:Drama, Thriller
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Screenwriter: Don Roos
based on the novel "SWF Seeks Same" by John Lutz
Music:Howard Shore
Cinematography:Luciano Tovoli
Editor: Lee Percy
Cast:
Bridget Fonda
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Steven Weber
Peter Friedman
Stephen Tobolowsky
Frances Bay
Rating:6.4/10
Title:Copycat
Year:1995
Country:USA
Language:English
Genre:Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Jon Amiel
Screenwriters: Ann Biderman, David Madsen
Music:Christopher Young
Cinematography:László Kovács
Editors: Jim Clark, Alan Heim
Cast:
Sigourney Weaver
Holly Hunter
William McNamara
Dermot Mulroney
J.E. Freeman
Will Patton
Harry Connick Jr.
John Rothman
Rebecca Klingler
Kelvin Han Yee
Rating:6.9/10
