Review: DEATH BECOMES HER (1992)

Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, and Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her (1992)

November 20, 2024

Death Becomes Her (1992), featuring Meryl Streep (slayyyy), Bruce Willis, and Goldie Hawn is a camp masterpiece and an impressively subtle queer horror film. In the movie, Helen Sharp (Hawn) and Madeline Ashton (Streep) fight over shared love interest Ernest (Willis). Helen is convinced that Madeline only goes after men that she was dating first, a common theme in wlw Horror (Ginger Snaps, Jennifer’s Body). Obsessed with their stylized performance and presentation, both characters take a potion of eternal youth and beauty. Even though they were warned to take care of their bodies because they would be “spending a long time with them,” they found ways to physically die almost instantly, their bodies decaying more and more everyday even though they're still walking. 

Though the queer relationship is not fulfilled until the end of the movie, the entire film is camp beyond all means. My favorite part is when any of the characters are falling down a set of stairs. They teeter totter on the edge for an extremely long amount of time before finally falling and rolling even longer with repeated shots of them going over the same part over and over again. The entire fall takes entirely too long however it is perfectly comedically timed. The final time the two leading ladies fall, they break into a million pieces that hilariously spread all across the floor. Other absurdly funny moments include Helen walking around with a hole in her stomach after being shot by Madeline and the girls spray painting their only bodies to look more alive.

After Madeline and Helen’s fight, they realize physically hurting each other is not going to solve anything because neither of them can die or feel pain. They talk about where their hatred for each other started and confess to each other their wrong doings. They very quickly make the switch from enemies to friends and forget all about Ernest, until they realize that he is the only one who can put them back together. He reluctantly fixes up the girls on the assertion that they will leave him alone after that, to which the girls have no problem with. They care more about each other and their beauty than the man that drove them apart in the first place. 

After the movie’s climax, the girls understand that they are going to be living together for the rest of eternity “spray painting each other's butts.” At first this realization is horrific between the two but a flash forward to Ernest’s funeral tells us differently. The ending shows that they get along just fine as they “age” but it doesn’t prevent them from arguing like an old married couple. After their limbs separate from their toros, Helen can only ask if Madeline remembers where she parked the car or if she forgot like she forgets everything else.

Helen and Madeline’s enemies to lovers pipeline is a story that is refreshing to see come from this time period with such incredible stars. And even though their relationship seems could be interpreted as the but of the joke, to me it felt sarcastic yet real. They know that no one will ever know them better than the way they know each other, and if they must live forever, they are happy to have another person to help them go through it. They are absolutely perfect for each other, both in their feats and many, many flaws.

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Rating: 🦄🦄🦄🦄

Jay Burgart is a film studies student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

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