Review of ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Robert Zemeckis, 1992)
‘Death Becomes Her’ hasn’t worn with age as well as its subject matter would seem to necessitate, but it is a funny, gentle dig at Hollywood’s obsession with youth, beauty and the fear of growing old. Meryl Streep is relishing her part as a faded Broadway star, with shades of Bette Davis in ‘Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?’, who is pathologically obsessed with her fall from grace, and seeks the antidote in a magic potion which means that her body returns to her optimum age and she is afforded a second chance to dazzle the world.
St. Augustine in the fifth century proposed a similar model, whereby at the time of the resurrection the body will appear in that size and physical condition in which it appeared at the time of youthful maturity, which he set at about 30. Augustine thought that the righteous would be restored to their most comely appearance with the resurrection bodies of the saved rendered perfect, with anything deemed ugly, deformed, or superfluous destined to disappear, with unsightly blemishes and deformities corrected.
But there is a price to be paid in ‘Death Becomes Her’, as eternal life turns out to be less satisfying after all, and death isn’t quite so unappealing, especially when there is no longer a plastic surgeon around, in the shape of Bruce Willis’ hen-pecked husband, to halt the dilapidation. The film is better at showcasing the best special effects of the day more than it is engaging in any serious theological business of evaluating the relative merits of the resurrection of the flesh over the immortality of the soul. But, it is not without its comedic moments, as when Streep’s neck is twisted out of shape and she can literally see her own backside, while her nemesis played by Goldie Hawn has a see-through hole the size of a large rock in the middle of her stomach.
What disappoints, though, is that this film, despite tantalizing us with the elixir of eternal youth and the Faustian pact that follows between Streep and Isabella Rossellini‘s mysterious beauty guru, who holds the key to eternal life but not without a few terms and conditions, has nowhere to go. It concludes with a comical scene of Hawn and Streep’s disintegrated but still alive bodies, and with a lame quip, and this feels like an opportunity wasted considering the themes around death and immortality which are integral to this black comedy. Even the special effects look dated by today’s standards, though it is funny to watch Bruce Willis cast against type as an ageing, balding plastic surgeon whose only function in life is to paper over the cracks in Streep’s disintegrating body.
