She-Devil

I found a great deal to like about She-Devil, especially Streep's performance, but it's easy to figure out why it didn't find an audience. It deals with just about everything American film-goers traditionally don't want to think about: old people, fat people, ugly people, nursing homes, class, money, and the ever-present specter of death. Also, it involves a dog dying. Read full review

As feminist polemic, She-Devil is dubious indeed. Read full review

Miss Streep dives into this thimble-sized comedy and makes one believe - at least, while she is on the screen - that it is an Olympic-sized swimming pool of wit. Read full review

She-Devil has its moments, thanks chiefly to Meryl Streep's way with the comic role of a la-de-da writer of romance novels. But devilishness is precisely what it lacks. Unlike "The War of the Roses," the other marital vendetta comedy opening today, She-Devil hasn't got the courage of its nasty convictions. [8 Dec 1989, p.59]

Vulgarity, of course, has its honored place in comedy, but in She-Devil such moments merely seem grim and desperate - substitutes for the real laughs the film has failed to discover. Read full review

Director Seidelman thrashes about in search of a tone: there's no weight to her images; the plot twists seem arbitrary and contrived. By the end you've lost interest in Ruth's revenge and can't wait until Streep gets back on screen. Watching her prod her face into new shapes in the mirror, contemplating a face-lift, you momentarily forget you're watching a mediocre movie and marvel at real comic witchcraft. [11 Dec 1989, p.88]

Director Susan Seidelman takes aim at the box office with the team of movie queen Meryl Streep and TV slob queen Roseanne Barr. She misfires. Streep gets all the jokes, and Barr, looking stranded, plays it straight. Worse, nobody’s bothered to write them a big scene together. But for a while you can see the possibilities. Read full review

An all-star lineup with some kookie moments, but a bit limp overall. Read full review

Streep's tentative foray into comedy is deliberately mannered, but the breathy delivery and constant fluttering of hands are nevertheless excessive. And in her film debut, Barr just isn't imposing enough to inspire notions of devilish vengeance. The film-makers have opted for frothy satire, but as comedies go this is lamentably short on laughs. Read full review