Single White Female

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: August 14, 1992

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

63	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Delores Barclay

A first-class thriller that will strike a terrifying note with anyone who's ever met the roommate from hell. [12 Aug 1992]

Roger Ebert

This is a story which, in other hands, could have simply been an all-female slasher movie, but Barbet Schroeder, who produced and directed it, has a mordant humor that pushes the material over the top. It is a slasher movie, and a little more. Read full review

Hal Hinson

Schroeder's refusal to choose moral sides gives the psychological confrontation between the women the kind of weird, mutually accepted form of diseased codependency that Claus and Sunny von Bulow shared in his previous film, Reversal of Fortune. In Single White Female, Schroeder leaves the subtext unresolved, but manages to strike a very raw nerve. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

A clever, by-the-numbers gothic thriller. Single White Female is entertaining claptrap. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Schroeder brings a decidedly un-Hollywood approach to the material, which is both the source of the film's greatest aesthetic strength (it is unusually attentive to questions of character and form) and most crippling commercial weakness. American audiences, used to nonstop action, will probably grow impatient with Schroeder's slow, nuanced approach. Read full review

Bill Cosford

It's an A-list thriller directed by Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Barfly ) and graced with wonderful performances by Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. [14 Aug 1992, p.G5]

Mick LaSalle

Even at its silliest, it's a better picture than most, with surprises and inventive turns and performances that remain strong throughout. [14 Aug 1992, p.C1]

Joe Pollack

Lutz created more than just a mystery yarn, and Don Roos' screenplay and Schroeder's direction take the story even further and, of course, make it a lot more visual. [14 Aug 1992, p.3G]

Mike Clark

Cross Ingmar Bergman's Persona with Roman Polanski's oeuvre and you get a workable mix ultimately sunk by standard slasher silliness. [14 Aug 1992, p.4D]

Vincent Canby

Single White Female is Mr. Schroeder's bid to compete in the mass market, and there's no reason he shouldn't succeed. The film is smooth, entertaining and believably sophisticated. It has far more sound psychological underpinnings than other movies of its type. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Even though Single White Female is more second-rate, knife-stabbing psycho drivel, it's no pain to sit through. It looks great, for one thing. It has two fabulous faces -- Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It's also funny, sexy, suspenseful and, yes, utterly stupid. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

For the most part, it works well at this level with the added bonus of some unexpected intellectual twists. The predominant thing that bogs down SWF is the script. It has too many plot holes to be fully believable and too little psychological background on our unbalanced roomie (and when it is revealed, it's revealed all in one stroke). Read full review

Jeff Shannon

If you were to subtract the strikingly mature and subtly nuanced performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Single White Female would be almost indistinguishable from the majority of half-baked, pseudo-psychological thrillers that Fatal Attraction brought into vogue. [14 Aug 1992, p.3]

Rick Groen

As an esthetic work, the movie is dismissable. As a social artifact, however, it's intriguing. Textually and sub-textually, intentionally or inadvertently, just what is being said here? [14 Aug 1992]