Based on Fay Weldon’s novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), She-Devil features Ruth Patchett, a frumpy, physically less blessed and puffy housewife with facial warts (played by Roseanne Barr, fresh from breaking through with her eponymous sitcom making her bold screen debut) going through a tough time as her empty-headed husband (Ed Begley Jr.) drifts into a relationship with the wealthy and narcissistic romance novelist Mary Fisher (Meryl Streep, the renowned master of serious drama, in her first comedy role). Swearing diabolical revenge, Ruth draws up a list and destroys the lives of the couple who shattered her harmony, piece by piece, element by element.
Contrasts create sparks, and the image-defying casting works brilliantly, with Roseanne daring to embrace “ugliness” with the same conviction as Streep did two years earlier in Ironweed (1987). A particular gem is the writer’s unabashedly sharp-tongued mother (Sylvia Miles).
The black humour cloaked in candy colours cuts far beneath the surface. Ruth, who has set up a new company as a front, rallies her female army together in the true spirit of Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves, and the descent of Fisher, rendered shrill by a chain of disasters, from diva of divas into the scabby gutter provides cathartic delight. A forgotten eighties comedy gem!
Lauri Timonen