Single White Female

 

1992

Dir: Barbret Schroeder

 
This probably isn’t the right film to recommend to my sister as she looks for new flatmates…

Single White Female is so sexually gritty and aware of the flesh that it almost feels like a David Cronenberg film, and that can only be a good thing.

After breaking up with her cheating fiancé, Bridget Fonda’s Allie decides it’s time she moved on and got a new roommate. The winning candidate ends up being the sweet, meek and innocent Heddy, played with typical visceral convulsion by Jennifer Jason Leigh. However, as you can probably guess, Heddy is anything but the gentle lamb she appears, and soon her obsession with Allie becomes much more serious than just borrowing her clothes and copying her haircut. Not that women would think things could get much more serious than that; I know how seriously they take their Barnets.

The film that Single White Female most reminds me of is, unsurprisingly, Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers from 1988, his disturbing exploration into the lives of twin gynaecologists. Again, it is no big shock that the film’s director is the Franco-Swiss artist Barbret Schroeder, who learned his trade under the serial mind-fucker Jean-Luc Godard. Thankfully Schroeder utilises the more positive aspect of French cinema in Single White Female, that being it’s naked - literally and metaphorically - depiction of sexuality and suffering.

Leigh is so thoroughly tragic and convincing in her role that the inevitable ‘slasher’ type conclusion feels horribly contrived and unnecessary. Her performance has none of the scene munching of Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct, or even the downright psychoticness of Kathy Bates in Misery. Heddy is a fractured, fragile young girl who you can’t help but sympathise with, especially next to the sleek, sexy Allie, who seems about as approachable as a supermodel with a machete. You can’t help but slightly agree when Heddy calls her “fucking weak” for going back to her sleazy boyfriend.

But the ending is silly, and there are clichéd ‘Bunny Boiler’ moments that would make Glenn Close wince - a note to all lovers of bog roll out there, the Andrex puppy doesn’t not fair too well in this flick.

Despite that, Single White Female is still handled with enough visceral care, and still provides two gripping performances to help it stand at least a stiletto heel above the competition in these kind of psychological horror thrillers.

Just don’t be surprised, for all the geezers out there, if, after seeing this film, the next time you wake up to find an attractive woman sucking your cock you absolutely shit yourself. You have been warned, chaps.

**** / *****

"I guess these boots weren't made for walkin'."