Imagine you could become immortal. You would never worry about aging or death - you would stay young and beautiful forever, and you would be in good company. The only catch is that after ten years, you would have to "disappear" in order to uphold The Masquerade. Now imagine that your biggest romantic rival has already taken this step.Oh, and a warning: you will need to take very good care of your body, because you will be using it for a very long time...Death Becomes Her is a 1992 dark comedy directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis. It won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
This movie contains examples of:
Absurdly Sharp Claws: In one scene Meryl Streep's character leaves scratchmarks on a solid column.
An Aesop: At the end, no one knows who Ernest Menville was before he turned 50. He became famous, successful and found true love after 50.
The Alcoholic: Ernest has become one, and now can no longer use his cosmetic surgery skills on living patients. It's implied his bad marriage is to blame.
Helen Sharp, regarding Madeline Ashton: She was a homebreaker. She was a man-eater. And she was a bad actress.
This is doubly hilarious when you watch the film and find out that Meryl Streep—the world's finest actress, by general agreement—plays Madeline Ashton.
For Madeline: "Cheap!" Madeline had already had the upper hand on Ernest - had she ignored his "Cheap!" remark, she'd have never fallen down the stairs.
Betty and Veronica: Helen, a shy, timid Betty in the beginning of the movie, is desperately afraid her fiance Ernest will fall for Madeline, her childhood friend, who is a flashy actress and definite Veronica. Depending on how you define the roles, though, they become less distinct after the first fifteen minutes of the movie.
Blessed with Suck: Shortly after finding out about each other's immortality, Helen and Madeline try to kill each other. They don't die, but their bodies do, and they are stuck in their broken, battered corpses for (it is implied) eternity. They use undertaking techniques just to keep themselves looking and moving like real people - but then their bodies simply fall apart.
Body Horror: Many of the Amusing Injuries throughout the movie fall under this. Though mostly it's Played for Laughs, when you think about living with all of those injuries, artificially masked, forever...
The Cameo: Sydney Pollack is the first doctor Madeline sees post-stairs accident.
Chekhov's Gun: Ernest is seen trying to throw scalpels at a dartboard early in the film. He does poorly, presumably due to the years of alcoholism giving him shaky hands. Later on, after having one of his hands rejuvenated to display the powers of the potion, he throws a knife with perfect accuracy just when he needs to.
Crapsack World: Debatable: On one hand, appearance is everything and undeath is preferable to aging. On the other hand, Ernest achieved recognition and popularity in his twilight years due to his charity and achieved immortality that way.
Did You Get a New Haircut?: Played straight. After Madeline has drunk a potion giving her eternal youth and beauty, her husband Ernest asks, "Change your hair?"
Elvis Has Left The Planet / Elvis Lives: The King is one of several famous people who took the immortality potion and faked his own death. He makes appearances from time to time to grab a few headlines.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Lisle and company are genuinely puzzled when Ernest refuses the potion. They are too self-centered and shallow to care about the reasons he has for not wanting to be immortal.
Fanservice: Lisle. And her boyfriends/bodyguards. "Keep your ass handy."
Michelle Johnson in one scene, before her boss shows up to refer Mad to Liesl.
Fat Suit. Hawn donned one for a segment. She never let her children see her wearing it, reportedly, because it scared them.
Femme Fatale: Both Madeline and Helen, but Helen really plays it up.
Helen: You're a powerful sexual being, Ernest.
Ernest: I am?
Helen: Yes, you are. If I never told you before, it was because I wasn't the sort of girl who could say the word "sexual" without blushing. Well I can now. Sexual... sensual... sexy... sex... sex... sex...
Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Helen Sharp has her cupboards stocked with cake frosting several years after the heartbreak of watching her fiancee marry Madeline Ashton.
Henpecked Husband: Ernest. So much. He would rather suffer a near-fatal fall than deal with his bitchy wife for the rest of his life.
Hidden Depths: Ernest, beaten down by years of horrible marriage, at first seems weak willed and buffoonish. By the end he comes across as the strongest and wisest character in the film.
Hollywood Mid Life Crisis: All three main characters suffer this. Ernest copes at the end, starting his life anew at 50.
Immortality: Ernest also acheives a more aesoppish form of immortality in films end by being remembered after death for his accomplishments in life.
Immortality Begins at Twenty: Played with. The serum makes you look younger. Of course, if you abuse yourself like Mad and Hel, you end up looking like crones from constant repair.
Immortality Hurts: Averted. Neither Madeline or Helen feel their injuries.
In-universe example: Madeline is cast in a musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth, which is about an older woman desperately clinging to her youth and beauty.
The Loins Sleep Tonight: Madeline accuses Ernest of this. He doesn't deny it. He does later remarry and have children, so it's probably cured by quitting drinking and being with someone who loves him.
The Masquerade: No one must know of the potion. Foreshadowed when the plastic surgeon turns off his security camera when telling Madeline about Lisle.
Meaningful Name. All over the place. For one, Ashton fears growing old. Sharp is what Helen becomes. Both women become Mad as Hel. And, of course, ErnestMenville.
Neck Snap: An understandable result of being pushed down a long flight of marble stairs. Less uderstandable is the fact that she gets up afterwards with her head twisted around backwards.
It looks like she was bitten by a radioactive owl.
Not Using the Z Word. No one in the film mentions zombies, but director Robert Zemeckis openly admits in interviews it's a zombie film, albeit glamorous literally Hollywood zombies.
Mad and Hel being zombies probably wouldn't have occurred to the audience at the time either. Zombies were stupid, flesh-eating, rotting corpses who were still relatively novel at the time.
Nuns Are Spooky: Ernest meets three of them coming out of the morgue. They glide.
Older Than They Look: Duh. Lampshaded by Lisle, who has Madeline guess her age (71). Madeline first guesses 38, which earns her a Death Glare from Lisle, and quickly re-guesses 28 and 23.
Playing Against Type: Bruce Willis playing a cowardly henpecked husband. Bonus points for the character being literally impotent.
Rasputinian Death: Madeline and Helen get these by the end, only they don't take.
Scary Shiny Glasses: Ernest has them for a moment when Helen finishes outlining her plot to kill Madeline.
Soft Water: Ernest's swan dive off the top of a huge mansion, through a stained-glass skylight, and into an indoor pool leaves him with only a nasty-looking cut on his arm.
Possibly justified — he hits the basically flat skylight flat on his back which would minimize immediate cuts and the window breaking would reduce the force of that impact considerably while still slowing down his speed enough to keep the water from killing him on second impact.
In the first draft, Ernest was supposed to die in the fall, with the movie ending at his funeral.
Springtime for Hitler: Although Madeline's musical performance is mostly hated, it is precisely then that Ernest falls in love with her.
Waking Up At The Morgue: Justified here, because nobody could survive a tumble down a flight of marble stairs and a twisted around head... and technically, she didn't.
Comically Missing the Point: Of course, when the priest eulogizes Ernest that he'd found the secret to immortality through his children and his work, Helen and Madeline both mock, "Blah Blah Blah."
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