Regular readers of this website have probably noticed that I usually begin each review with a personal story that is almost always some variation of the exact same story. It involves the author (me) having to jump through hoops to rent or purchase tickets for a film that was howlingly inappropriate for a child. Occasionally I’d have to do battle with some video store clerk who’d elected themselves Supreme Arbiter of Morality (there was that one guy who told me he’d sooner shut down his business than rent me an Andre Dice Clay stand-up tape...and you know...he might’ve actually done me a favor) but I was generally able to watch whatever I wanted. My mom, bless her heart, has watched just seven movies since 1980. Our conversations usually went something like this: Mom: What movie did you rent? Me: Umm...Blue Velvet. Mom: What’s it about? Me:....Smurfs. Her: Sounds good! I’m an only child so it was easy to keep my hard R’s to myself. To simply close my bedroom door and get lost in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! I’m an Almadovar freak--what can I say!? So it’s September of 1992 and I’m 13 years old and about two weeks into my freshman year of high school. My mom, who worked nights, suggested it might be fun if I went to the movies with our reclusive downstairs neighbor, Joan. I suggested that neither of us really knew or spoke to Joan and HUH!? But...you know...I would never pass up an opportunity to spend a night at the flicks! So I met up with Joan, who said she was short on cash and suggested we see something at the second-run moviehouse, where tickets were only two bucks a pop. I pulled out the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, flipped to the entertainment section and saw that the Elm Draught House was showing Single White Female. I’d been hoping for Mo’ Money, but I figured SWF would suffice. We drove to the theater in Joan's black Nissan Pulsar and didn't speak a single word to each other the entire way. After we paid for our tickets, Joan noticed a SWF poster outside of the theater and stopped cold. “Ohhh wait,” she said, “is this a good movie for you? I mean...it looks like it’s rated R. 17 and older, right?” I told her that I was turning 14 in six weeks and not to worry. She considered phoning my mom at work for permission but I talked her out of it. Told her I was literally made of R rated movies...and yes...I know what “literally” means. So we took our seats and the movie came on and it was raunchy as fucking shit! Even watching it again now, as a grown ass 42 year-old man, I might’ve blushed a little. The lead actresses in this film are almost always naked and/or fucking. Like, they could’ve just called this movie Naked & Fucking. It exceeded my wildest expectations, inappropriateness wise. I mean--the movie itself kinda sucks. On the ride home, Joan wore the exact expression you’d expect to see on someone who just took her neighbor’s 13 year-old son to see a skin flick: wide-eyed...pale...mouth agape. I think there might’ve even been a tear or two. This poor lady was probably thinking “this kid is gonna go home and ask his mom what ‘came in my mouth’ means and she’s gonna come downstairs and beat me with a dust broom.’ Needless to say, this was our one and only movie outing. Not only did we never hang again, I don’t think we ever even SPOKE again. I’d see her in the hallway and be all “how’s it going, Joan!?” and she’d wordlessly scurry past me and slam her apartment door and start praying for my fallen soul.
I decided to watch Single White Female again for the first time since the last time...and what happens is this: we open with some pre-credits shots of creepy 9 year-old twin girls putting makeup on each other creepily. File that one under “prolly gonna be important later on in the flick (note: it is).” We crane in on a forbidding, Gothic-style apartment building on the Upper West Side, where we meet the scarcely clothed Allie (Bridget Fonda) and her almost fiancee, Sam (Steven Weber). They’re lazing around her bedsit explaining their entire backstory to the audience. I know I’m always busting on flicks with super expository dialogue...but I’m gonna go ahead and give this one a pass. Let’s just get this shit over with, right? Allie asks her beef how many kids they’re gonna have and asks if he thinks a naked skydiving wedding is a good idea. He does not think it’s a good idea, no. She mentions that she’s stoked to be living in this massive rent controlled apartment, even though she hasn’t been living in NYC for very long. Umm...yeah, so I did some googling and it turns out this building is called The Ansonia and Babe Ruth used to live there and apartments are currently renting for $40000….A MONTH! Is this woman a Kennedy cousin or something?? We’re only two minutes in and I’m already throwing my first bullshit flag. It’s also established that Allie’s upstairs neighbor Graham can hear her comings and goings (emphasis on the former) through a heating grate. This movie does foreshadowing with the subtlety of a snow shovel to the face. So, they ball and drift off to dreamland, only to be cruelly awoken by the sound of a ringing telephone. It’s the dude’s ex wife...who needs to talk about what exactly at 3 AM?? Sam hangs up on her. Allie decides to take a stroll around the apartment butt ass naked…’cuz in this movie, anything worth doing is worth doing butt ass naked. Ex wife calls again but this time the answering machine picks up. Remember when someone would call your house and you could gauge whether you wanted to talk to said caller by listening to a few seconds of their live answering machine message?? Unless you’re old as balls like me then you probably do not. The machine clicks on and ex wife is all “hey SAM--you think you can just come over here and ball me all afternoon and…” Sam picks up the phone and is all “ummm...you must have the wrong number...PRANK CALLER!!!” But our girl Allie--she heard what’s up. Dude is all “It was an accident...I swear! We had Pinot Grigio at lunch!” Allie flees to her upstairs neighbor’s place, who already knows what’s going on, having listened through his vent. I thought maybe a rebounder was in the cards since this dude Graham is shirtless and cut but I guess he’s also gay. Drat.
The next afternoon, we learn that Allie is a mad smart computer engineer who designs dressmaking software. Super futuristic shit. She even sends an email and purchases plane tickets online in the year 1992, which made my head literally explode (see, here I am misusing the word literally). She tries to sell her program to legendary character actor and man who I am never not happy to see until I saw him in this film, Steven Tobolowsky. Tobo is a douchey prick who gives her the runaround and also drops some crumbs about how Allie is rolling in the dough because she deep-sixed her software partner and kept the software. I figure this is going to come up again later in the flick but, you know, it totally doesn’t! Allie returns to her apartment and tears the sheets off of her bed and wails. She decides that since her boyfriend has a severe case of Wandering Penis Syndrome, he will no longer be welcome at that address. Even though she is apparently filthy rich and lives in one of the most exclusive residences in the city, she decides that she needs a roommate. I mean...come onnnn!!! That’d be like John Lennon trolling for a roomie for his pad at the Dakota. Male...40...heavy smoker...vegetarian….seeking roommate who likes The Beatles (no Paul songs, please). So she plants an ad in the classifieds: seeking a single white female. Why they gotta be white, huh? What if my grandma is part Bantu? Am I disqualified then? Why you gotta be so racist?? I will say--I’m TOTALLY on board with the S in SWF. Quick story--from 2011 to 2016 I lived in a four-bedroom apartment with three single roommates who all grew significant other-shaped appendages and allowed them to cohabitate. Not...like...officially move in...just sleepover 365 nights a year and pay no rent and eat and shit and shower and take nasty resin hits on the couch while watching a Glee marathon all day when I wanted to watch the motherfucking Beastmaster on the television that I paid for!! GRAH!! Eventually, those 6 roommates moved out and I got three new roommates and read ALL of them the riot act about unscheduled live-in S.O’s. And what did they, all three of them, turn around and do?? They all let their boyfriends/girlfriends move in ASAP!! Do I have “I like listening to my roommates fucking” written on my forehead or something!? One guy so angry at me when I told him his GF couldn’t stay over anymore he called me a “bitter old dickhead.” I was 36 years-old. Man, if only he could see me now! ANYWAY, Allie sets herself up for a quick roommate interview montage. She makes all of her applicants pose for Polaroids at the end of the interviews, which is awkward as shit. I’d be like “not so fast there Bobby Mapplethorpe!” But I’m not a SWF so what do I know? She seems to hit it off with this one applicant who I instantly recognized at Sleepaway Camp 2 star and youngest Esta-Sheen child Rene Estavez...which made me wish I was watching Sleepaway Camp 2 instead. Allie seems ready to pull the trigger, but when Rene leaves, Allie crumples to the kitchen floor in a sobbing heap. I guess she’s still not over whatsisname or whatever. Her ugly cry is interrupted by the sound of footsteps and a voice. She looks up and is greeted by the sight of Jennifer Jason Leigh standing in her kitchen! Allie is all “Oh snap! JJL! I’ve been a big fan since Fast Times, gurrrl!” JJL is like “hey! We both have famous Hollywood dads! We were born to share an apartment in this bizarro building!” Although JJL’s pops was helicoptered to death by John Landis. And..well..Peter Fonda is dead now too...so. What really happens is JJL, who introduces herself as Hedy, fixes a leaky sink, which impresses Allie so much that she throws all of her applications in the garbage and immediately offers Hedy the apartment. All of that Poloroid film...just WASTED!
Allie gives her new roomie a tour of the property and points out all of the areas of the building that will make good spots for chase scenes later on when the movie turns violent. Allie mentions that the elevator is janky as fuck and won’t move up or down unless you jam a sharp screwdriver into its control panel. Was it Chekov that said that if you see a pistol in the first act of a play, you can expect it to be fired in the second act (or something?). So it goes with this janky elevator screwdriver key. The ladies take a tour of the basement, which was once home to a gay bathhouse where Bette Midler would often perform accompanied by Barry Manilow on the piano. In the late 70’s, the space became the notorious Plato’s Retreat, NYC’s premier orgy emporium. That’s some legendary shit right there, y’all! I’m not sure if they actually filmed these scenes in that same basement but from the looks of it (utilitarian laundry room, storage units, garbage incinerator) I’m gonna say they did not! The ladies grow so hot and bothered by all of that decades-old sexual energy emanating from the concrete floor that they both strip themselves naked. Actually, I made that up. This is one of the few scenes where people remained fully clothed. Speaking of nudity--after Hedy moves in, she and Allie settle right into the roommate groove of eating ice cream cones and snuggling in bed watching classics and sneaking into each other’s rooms to see what kind of fun prescription drugs are available for stealing (hey, we’ve all done it! Right….Right??) and casually lounging around topless or bottomless or both of the above. Fairly standard roommate stuff.
Sam keeps leaving apologetic answering machine messages for Allie and Hedy immediately erases them before Allie can hear them. A little weird, no doubt, but maybe she’s just looking out for her new BFF, right? But the next day Hedy goes out and buys a fucking puppy without asking if it’s ok to have pets. A PUPPY! Do you know how much work dogs are? They cost a shit ton of money and tend to live anywhere from 10 to 20 years. It ain’t exactly a Betta Fish, know what I’m sayin’? Quick story: years ago I signed a one-year lease with a roommate who did not spend a single night at our apartment (shit, I guess all of that roommates-with-girlfriends drama from years later was some sort of karmic payback. I never really thought of that until just now). One day, my invisible roomie left me a voicemail saying she had subletted her room to a lady with a 3 year-old and “hopefully that’s ok BYEEEE!” Wha!?? I was 22 and having nightly ecstasy parties. Of course it wasn’t ok! So this lady moved in one day while I was at work. She saw me arrive home, and without even introducing herself, says “you have to meet my baby! You have to meet my baby!” Before I could get a word out, she dragged me into her bedroom and pointed to a glass tank that held not an infant but a motherfucking TARANTULA!!! Big hairy bastard, too. I offered her a Corona. She accepted and disappeared into her fully furnished room. The next morning I discovered that the lady and all of her belongings had vanished in the middle of the night. The tarantula haunts my dreams to this day. ANYWAY, Allie quickly falls in love with the puppy ‘cuz it’s a puppy. So far, besides the unplanned puppy, there’s only been a few innocent-ish red flags. Hedy says that her twin sister was stillborn and that Allie can be her twin sister now. Allie is all “Ohhh! Ummm...mmm hmmm!” One afternoon while headed out for a meeting, Allie runs into Graham, who says that he saw someone dressed in her clothes and jewelry but that it turned out to be Hedy. She’s skeptical..and you know...so am I. There were Bridget Fonda cosplayers ALL OVER NYC and the outer boroughs in 1992. When she arrives home from work, she discovers that Hedy has let her Sam into the apartment just to stir some shit. Dude begs Allie to go out and talk things over and, after some mild hemming and hawing, she agrees. This was clearly not Hedy’s desired outcome. We know this because she starts pulling her own hair out and paces around the apartment muttering to herself. Then she kicks the puppy upside the head! They always start with poor, defenseless animals, psycho killers do. Allie stays gone for like 48 hours, which drives Hedy halfway to insane. Hedy is too busy wantonly riding Sam in an armless swivel chair to see the murder that lives right across the hall! It certainly appears like Allie and Sam have reconciled. We know this from the riding, yes, and also from the giant rock we see on Allie’s finger when she digs her nails into Sam’s bareback. We cut back and forth from the sex to the apartment, where Hedy is lying in the bathtub naked. I mean, I understand that one generally does not put on swimwear to bathe privately, but this seems a bit excessive, no?
After however many days, Allie finally walk of shames herself home, where she finds Hedy in a highly agitated state. She’s all “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!??” and Allie is like “bangin’ my fiancee...what’s it to you, kookooroo? Hedy tears her a new asshole. Calls Allie a disloyal roommate and reminds her that she promised they’d be friends till the end. She’s like a human Chucky doll, this Hedy. She rants on and on about how Allie is so much prettier and how she’ll never find a man and Allie is like “now way, girl--you could have any man! You could even marry Noah Baumbach!” And she totally did, which was awesome! Then he ditched her for the 20 years younger Greta Gerwig, which was less awesome. Allie decides the best way to resolve this little standoff is to invite Sam over and sex him up while Hedy stews alone in her own bedroom. Parched from another marathon ball sesh, Allie heads to the kitchen for a glass of agua. When she returns she finds Hedy chatting with Sam...in her UNDIES! Sam is like “sooo...you wanna come in and hang” but Allie is not down AT ALL. Threefer: toast. Hedy retreats to her bedroom, where she starts masturbating. LOUDLY. Allie gets out of bed to see what’s the what (what does she THINK is happening??) and freezes up at the sight of her roomie fucking her pillow. She look like a little kid who just walked in on….their roomie fucking a pillow. Girl, you gotta close the door if yer gonna do that shit. Masturbating loudly with the door open is right up there with leaving the toilet seat up and failure to take out the recycling on the list of roommate don'ts.
The next morning, Hedy makes a little brekky for her oversexed roomies and everyone is happy and nothing is awkward. Allie and Sam decide to go out espresso machine shopping or some bougie bullshit and neglect to invite Heddy. That’s cool—she just hangs back and watches Melrose Place. Just kidding! She gets super pissed and throws the puppy out the fucking window! Did I mention that they live on the 11th floor? Well, they do. The puppy dies. Allie is inconsolable but Hedy feeds her a fistful of Valium and puts her to bed. While Allie is narco napping, Hedy half kisses Sam, who is not NOT receptive to her advances. When Allie finally rouses herself some two and a half days later she realizes she’s 9 hours late for an important meeting with Tobolowsky. I’ll tell you—she should’ve taken about 5 more Valium cuz this shit does not go well. Tobo starts to slam champagne and Allie is like “slow your roll there, Ned Ryerson!” Then it gets ugly. He says he’s not going to pay her if she doesn’t sleep with him. When she continues to refuse he decides he’ll just go ahead and rape her. He pulls out his pecker but Allie is quick on the draw and punches his dick off before getting right up out of there. It is terrible. She rushes home and tells Hedy about the attempted sexual assault because I guess Sam is out of town doing whatever it is that Sam does. Hedy is like “I know how we’ll handle this!” She calls Tobo at home and screams “you better pay my friend or I’ll murder your entire family you raping motherfucker!!” Allie is like “umm....thanks?” The next day they hit the salon together and Hedy apparently asks her stylist to make her look exactly like Allie. Now they’re BOTH rocking the Demi Moore. Allie finally starts to suspect this Hedy chica might be a few picnic baskets short of a picnic. She sneaks into Hedy’s bedroom and rifles through her shoebox of secrets. She learns that Hedy’s real name is Ellen Besch....and this Besch is crazy! It turns out her twin sister wasn’t stillborn but died from drowning, some 9 years post birth. She also learns that Hedy has been stealing the letters that Sam had sent to her while they were on a relationship hiatus. Instead of just....you know...ASKING HER TO MOVE OUT...Allie decides to covertly follow Hedy around the meatpacking district one night. Hedy goes to a basement sex club and gets her feet tickled (everyone’s got their thing, man). I’m thinking this scene is an homage to the sordid history of the Ansonia’s building...and I’m also thinking that approximately zero people picked up on this. Maybe if Wikipedia had existed in 1992...
Allie rushes back to the building, where she spills her tale of woe to her upstairs buddy Graham. Unfortunately Hedy is already home from her foot tickle and can hear every word they’re saying because of that heating vent thing I told you about way back at the beginning of this review. Graham tells Allie that if she doesn’t call the police ASAP then he’ll do it for her. He also chooses this moment to tell Allie about the heating vent and that he can hear ALL of her sex. Check your timing, bro! While Allie goes home to NOT call the police, Hedy sneaks into Graham’s apartment and beats him to death with a wrought iron door fastener, thus graduating to actual murderer. I don’t know, y’all—this gal is clearly unwell...but it’s a pretty big leap from killing puppies to killing people. A better movie might try to delve into her psyche (really any other background besides a dead twin sister would’ve been super duper helpful. The VHS box just describes her as “mousy.” Mousy=prone to violence, Capisce?). But this, my friends, is not a better movie...so into the abyss we go!
Allie decides that she will confront Hedy while she’s in the shower...where she’s unsurprisingly naked. Allie notices that the sink is full of blood soaked clothes but Hedy explains it away like “yeah, just got my period. You know how that is.” Allie starts to plead her case but Hedy is like “no need to chat—I’ll just move out! It’s totally NBD!” Allie helps her pack her shit and the movie ends with a shot of Hedy wistfully pulling onto Amsterdam Avenue in a U-Haul. Just kidding AGAIN! Sam is staying in a hotel until he and Allie can move into the apartment from Ghost together. Hedy somehow figures out the location of Sam's room, let’s herself in, crawls into bed with him, and starts to fellate him while he’s sound asleep. Sam has absolutely idea it isn’t Allie because they have the same darn haircut! When Sam DOES notice that his penis is in a strange mouth he freaks out and tells her to stop but it’s too late. He finishes. There’s a word for what I just described and that word is rape. Once finished, Hedy jumps out of bed all “ah hah! I knew you were a scum bag....letting me rape you so easily! Wait till I tell my bff Allie!” Sam calls her nuts and I’ll tell ya…”nuts'' must be the Pee Wee’s Playhouse magic word because Hedy proceeds to pick up her stiletto and bury it in Sam’s forehead. He dies.
Hedy, who now has half as many kills as the Zodiac under her belt, returns to the apartment all harried. She all “humina humina GOOD NEWS Allie--I’m moving out right now!!” Allie ignores her and continues to drink her kale smoothie until something on the TV news catches her eye. There appears to have been a murder at Sam’s hotel...in Sam’s hotel room. Allie barfs. While she’s hugging the porcelain, she notices a pair of stilettos on the bathroom floor. Covered in BLOOD! When Hedy returns from retrieving her Glock 9mm from her basement storage unit she can tell the jig is up. Allie says she needs to go upstairs and see Graham but Hedy is like “grah hah hah good luck with that, bitch!” Hedy inexplicably starts to get naked because we CLEARLY have not had our fill of JJL’s bare flesh. Allie asks her naked roommate, who is slowly slipping on a pair of OJ Simpson Isotoners, if she murdered Sam. Hedy answers in the affirmative but is sure to mention that Sam came in her mouth before she lobotomized him with a high heel shoe. Allie’s like “yeah...that’s mos def way gross...but I’m still pretty upset about it.” Hedy says that none of this matters as she no longer exists: Hedy has now become Allie. Except she hasn’t actually become Allie. At all. Hedy drags Allie up to Graham’s apartment and says that they’re gonna escape to Paris and eat baguette together. Dude, wouldn’t Graham’s corpse be stinkin’ up the joint by now? Hedy slits Allie’s throat...but...like...only a little bit. She also kisses her on the mouth...so there’s that. Allie plays along so Hedy won’t finish the job and give her a Columbian necktie (note: is that racist? I feel like maybe it is. Although I should tell you that my paternal grandmother was born in Columbia...so it’s cool). While all of this is playing out, Steve Tobolowsky is at his office watching Allie’s software delete itself from his company’s computers. Probably shoulda paid the bill slash not sexually assaulted your client, eh dickhead?? He hauls ass over to the Ansonia, where he walks in on Hedy slowly torturing Allie. He cracks her in the dome before rushing to Allie and pulling the duct tape off her mouth. Allie sucks in some oxygen and screams “BE CAREFUL!! SHE'S CRAZY!” Tobo is all “pssh, I took care of her! So how’s about you and me grabbing that cocktail?” OPE...Hedy was only mildly concussed. She’s back on her feet, pumping bullets into Steve Tobolowsky. And you know? Fuck that guy anyway, right? Now Hedy wants Allie to kill herself by slugging down the rest of her valium. What’s this gal’s endgame here anyway!? She already done killed almost the entire cast of the movie. OH WAIT! Fucking Graham wakes up in the bathtub!! He wasn’t dead after all...just unconscious and bleeding out for the last three days or whatever. He should be totally fine after about six months in a medically induced coma. Groggy Graham lurches himself on top of Hedy for long enough to allow Allie to escape from the apartment...but Hedy still manages to shoot Allie in the arm. I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned this but a gunshot wound to the arm all but guarantees that the wounded character will survive until the end of the film.
Allie and Hedy pour themselves into the wonky elevator and just start beating the ever loving shit out of each other. A lot of deep-seated issues between these two at this point for sure. Allie pulls out that janky screwdriver (TOLD YOU we’d see that again! Or...Chekov did, anyway) and takes a few swings but Hedy gets the upper hand and pins Allie to the floor, where she strangles her to death. She dies. After she’s dead, Hedy leans in and kisses her on the mouth again. Dude...what ISN’T this girl into?? Necrophelia, voyeurism, animal murder, podophilia...THE WORKS! Hedy tries to drag Allie’s body into the trash incinerator but she comes back to life! There’s a pretty low stakes chase scene and honestly...I could really give two shits about who dies here as long as one of ‘em does! Eventually, Allie falls out of the ceiling like John Bender in Breakfast club and stabs Hedy in the back with the screwdriver and she dies. For real. After all we’ve just had to sit through that’s all we get? One quick shank?? Isn’t there some unwritten rule that says the psycho killer is supposed to die most gruesomely? Either by beheading and incineration or disembowelment by elevator or something of the like?? Far be it for me to advocate for violence against women...but this particular lady killed a puppy. Like Clint Eastwood said in that one movie that opened on the same day as this one: we all got it comin’. Or something. The movie ends with a voice over where Allie tells us that she’s mad bummed but that she has mostly forgiven Hedy for stalking the shit out of her and slitting her throat and strangling her and stealing her bomb earrings and for murdering her puppy and her fiance and her rapey boss. All’s well that ends well, I guess. The end.