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Single White Female (1992) More at IMDbPro »

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67 comments in total

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42 out of 64 people found the following comment useful :-
Awful!, 16 June 2004
Author: dewy_jxl from London, England

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I have never seen such trite in my life! The film, has no solid storyline and is amazingly awful. Bridget Fonda is gorgeous but i think this film totally undermined her, her acting performances were not projected as like a true actors would and god! It is just RUBBISH! The way the brunette woman killed Bridget Fonda's fiancée, by accidentally throwing the heel of a silver stiletto shoe in his eye, just cracked me up. This film cannot be of the thriller genre more of the comedy genre. The emotions that were meant to have been portrayed were not such as when Fonda found out her fiancée had died, what did she do? Just whimper! Show some emotion, please! The ending, oh my god! What an awful ending, the ending could have either been explained in a lot more detail or just shot differently, it would have made all the more difference, trust me. If they could just go back to the storyboards and elaborate on the shot angles, this film would be a little better.

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55 out of 91 people found the following comment useful :-
ALMOST, NOT QUITE, 12 March 2004

Author: marcosaguado from Los Angeles, USA

I love Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but, what are they doing here? A shameless rip off of a much better movie "Apartment Zero" with Colin Firth and Hart Bochner. As the journey had already been taken, the trip becomes an irritating one. I didn't care about it for a minute. The two actresses are always worth watching, they have the power to attract their audience whatever they're doing. That's partly why, I was so put off by the nonsense they were involved with in Single White Female.

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36 out of 65 people found the following comment useful :-
Apartment Less Than Zero, 7 October 2005

Author: bethlambert117 from United States

I finally seen this with my own eyes. What a missed opportunity. If their intention was to remake "Apartment Zero" with two females in the lead, they failed miserably. They missed the point of the original,totally. Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh are very good but the movie isn't. I lost patience with the convoluted phony attempt to capture my attention within the first 15 minutes of the film.. I'd seen it all before. I felt treated like an idiot. There is no psychological road to follow because the characters are replicates from better movies, they don't have a life of their own and as a consequence, I didn't care. By the way, where are Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh? I haven't seen them in a long time and I think they are wonderful - in other movies that is.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than todays thrillers., 18 December 2006

Author: TheTwistedLiver from Chicago

I saw this movie in theater in 1992 and remember it being very entertaining and somewhat racy. Fourteen years later the film holds up well to the test of time. A major difference is in the level of nudity between this film and the thrillers of today. Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh are hot! lets see them naked and often. Barbet schroeder understands this, and we see them both naked from the onset of the film. The story and acting develop well, the dialog is well written and the camera work is adequate.

Jennifer Jason Leigh steals the show in this film, she does a superb job handling the transition in the character of Heddy with her body language and shyness into the transition of a sexually charged woman, who is assertive and obviously losing her grip on reality. She takes more risks and becomes bold and violent. Overall much better and more entertaining than any of the crap you will find being made today in Hollywood. Don't expect Shakespeare and just enjoy the ride.

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13 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Another in the "From Hell" series, but good nonetheless, 21 July 2002

Author: Good-Evening-Clarice from Burbank, CA

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SINGLE WHITE FEMALE belongs to a series of movies I call the "From Hell" films, thrillers which were popular in the late 80s and early 90s. They include FATAL ATTRACTION (1987), with Glenn Close as the adultress from hell, CAPE FEAR (1991), with Robert DeNiro as the ex-convict from hell, THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (1992), with Rebecca DeMornay as the baby-sitter from hell, BASIC INSTINCT (1992), with Sharon Stone as the suspect from hell, and SINGLE WHITE FEMALE (1992), with Jennifer Jason Leigh as the roommate from hell, among others. But don't get me wrong, this is not a negative review. The movie has more stylish touches than you might expect from a film of this sort, and the first hour or so is terrific. Leigh and Bridget Fonda make a great pair and deliver solid performances. My only quibble is the slasher ending, but you can't really expect this type of film to end any other way; at least the killer does not wake up from the dead over and over. A box office hit back in the summer of 1992, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE is well worth the watch.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Persona Non Grata, 15 June 2006

Author: nycritic

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It had the doors wide open to become a dumbed-down slasher movie, but Barbet Schroder had other plans, of course. In showing seventy-five percent of the movie as a slow escalation into a study in vampirism, he creates with his own homage to PERSONA as SINGLE WHITE FEMALE a nauseating story that is so creepy it has to be seen to be believed. And with this in mind, it's possible to suspend some disbelief at the more rudimentary incursions into slasher films it decides to take as its resolution, and even then it does so in a dreamy way -- as if, again with a nod to Ingmar Bergman, he were trying to establish that this is only a hyperreal world, where the violence that is ensuing is on another level.

SINGLE WHITE FEMALE is a study in borderline personality disorder. Its subject is one Hedra Carlson (played to the hilt by Jennifer Jason Leigh). She is the answer to any tenant's prayer: calm, quiet, bookish, unassuming. It obvious she isn't there to create problems but to share a place in New York City, a city not known for cheap real estate. But she also has hints of darkness within her, and Barbet Schroder takes his blessed time in revealing just how deep it goes. Which is a fantastic thing: in doing so, he is able to establish a rapport between Hedra and her tenant, Allison Cooper, a girl who is Hedra's exact opposite -- sunny, outgoing, successful. And at the same time he is able to have Hedra's true face emerge from the waters in a way no one could see coming.

Allison and Hedra bond, and Schroder does it in his dreamy way, as if there were a Seventies-like innocence of two girls coming together and finding that they share so much in common. It's almost possible to hear a tune from that era in the early scenes of them together. However -- and there is always a however -- good times must come to an end, and Allison's dependence on Hedy (as Hedra calls herself, a faint echo of the "I call myself Phoebe" line from ALL ABOUT EVE, a film that also ends in the beginning of another predator/victim relationship about to take center stage) has to stop in order for her to move on. That, and taking a stance, because by the time Hedy comes down the stairs of the second-level of a beauty salon with her hair done exactly like Allison (in the film's most freakish scene), she is neck-deep in trouble. Because there are more surprises in store for her.

Bridget Fonda has said before she has a face like a stone. Which is quite interesting, because while that may be questionable, her poise, reminiscent of Grace Kelly or Tippi Hedren, is necessary for her character to work. As Allison, she exudes success, but not strength. She is the Hitchcock heroine ready to be raped by a monster while enamored of it. Such a monster is what Jennifer Jason Leigh creates with her rendition of Hedy. Hedy could be anyone, and had her back story not been a part of her present, it would have made her the more inexplicable -- the monster that is as opposed to the monster that became because of some trauma. Jason Leigh is a fantastic actress who becomes her role: she in effect could be this non-entity who is eager to please, and I'm sure everyone has met someone like her. She has a tricky part to play even though the script has her utter bad lines such as "Don't make me come get you!"

Now, as I mentioned earlier, the slasher portion of the movie is the one that brings the more problems. Yes, it was ultimately going to be a face-off -- American audiences wouldn't have had it any other way, and anyone who's seen the cerebral PERSONA knows that for a popular audience that wouldn't work. But it's made in a way that pushes the actors to a limit and much of the violence is done in an escalating way, not with sudden jerks and crashing music. Seeing Jason Leigh softly slapping Fonda across the face is more mentally jarring than the bullets her character pumps into Stephen Toblowsky as Fonda's character shrieks. And that the sequence, Fonda's and Jason Leigh's final face-off goes on and on while remaining somehow distant is another of the colder touches Schroder gives the film.

As a final mention, there has to be the inclusion of Schroder's more explicit nod to PERSONA. If he had been hinting all along at the previous film, he brings it out at the end with that shot of a photograph of both women's faces, torn down the middle, and stuck together. It's eerie, and reminiscent of that famous shot of the two actresses' faces, superimposed. In Allison's world, it's her way to bring closure to this tortured person.

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10 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Not bad, for the early 90's..., 9 September 2006

Author: MarieGabrielle from United States

if you compare what other fare was offered to the audience, in the way of suspense/psycho films. Also, Jennifer Jason Leigh is always interesting to watch, she adds depth to an otherwise one-dimensional character.

Bridget Fonda is also good, as Allison Jones, a NY designer on her way up, (there is an amusing scene with Stephen Tobolowsky as her sleazy client). It is a bit hard to believe the square footage of the NY apartment however, for two young single girls to be renting something that size. Also, some scenes reminded me of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby"; the laundry room, the storage area, etc.

Steven Weber is the faithless fiancé, with whom Fonda has a falling-out, and then Hedy (Jason Leigh) decides he is fair game. She has a psychological disorder, apparently lost her twin sister at a young age, and has never recovered.

The usual psychodrama ensues. Fonda's upstairs neighbor, Graham, attempts to help her, advises her to get Hedy to leave the apartment. One scene which is quite odd is where Allison follows Hedy to a bar, there is some inference to "S and M" type behavior, but this is not developed. Strange.

Worth watching for Jason Leigh's performance, or if you like Bridget Fonda. Not the best thriller- If you want something truly psychologically frightening rent Polanski's "Repulsion", starring Catherine Deneuve.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
The promise is let down by a muddle of drama and action, 28 April 2009

Author: Stampsfightclub from United Kingdom

After her partner moves out Allie Jones (Fonda) invites Hedra Carlson (Leigh) to move in, only Hedra has a few dark secrets and soon causes problems for her roommate.

The 1990's was a big step towards engaging actresses into more notable lead roles. Kathy Bates in Misery, Susan Sarandon and Gena Davis in Thelma and Louise and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs turned many memorable Oscar winners and nominees in some fantastic pictures and the playing field seemed to generate more female stars who are still remembered today. So a year after Ridley Scott's dramatic Thelma and Louise picture in 1991 could Fonda and Leigh generate the same level of press attention and accolade? The premise was definitely there. The claustrophobic feel of the plot with a stalker of a room mate and obsession reflects the nature of Kathy Bates' character in Misery and the whole love and cheating concepts could easily merit those reflected in Scott's picture but this never materialized. We are left with some, what can only be described as dull and boring soap styled concepts. The whole 'my partner has left me and now I'm depressed' is as flat as a pancake and Leigh's inclusion, whilst initially spicing things up became equally dull.

What follows is a collection of mad antics by Leigh's awkward character and Fonda's struggling Allie. The pairing isn't too bad. There are some spicy moments that generate good drama and tension between the pair. The whole dog thing is a good reflection, as is the already mentioned stunning climax.

The direction by Schroeder is frequently muddled. From high shots to low shots and the inclusion of the odd tracking shots there is never a settling momentum to carry the picture through its dramatic stages. The final half an hour is well handled as the script notches up a gear into flowing momentum with a good final ending.

If you feel inclined to turn off after ten minutes then you can be forgiven as there is little to match your enthusiasm for this picture.

But if you get up to the inclusion of the dog then you may as well carry on as the final stages generate some stunning tension.

Single White Female is what you may call a wonderful promise that was horribly muddled. It's described as a dramatic thriller and the whole 'drama' part is evident throughout being soapier than a Dove product, but the thriller tag never is evident still the stunning climax that is great, but simply not justification of what we saw, and we are simply rolling our heads and imagining what could have been.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Jennifer Jason Leigh steals the show., 25 February 2009

Author: Tweekums from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I first saw this in the cinema many years ago and enjoyed it enough to buy it when it came out on video. While I don't rate it as highly as when I first saw it I still think it is a good film, mainly due to the quality of the two lead actresses, especially Jennifer Jason Leigh who seems to be excellent in everything I've seen her in.

Bridget Fonda plays Allison Jones who learns that her fiancé has cheated on her with his ex-wife. She ends the relationship but doesn't want to live alone so puts an advert in the newspaper for a flatmate. Out of the applicants she chooses Hedra 'Hedy' Carlson a mousy girl played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, at first she seems like the ideal choice but things start to go wrong when it appears that Allie and her fiancé are getting back together. Hedy is determined to keep them apart, at the same time she starts to dress like Allie and even changes her hair style and colour to match. Things soon spiral out of control leading to a violent confrontation between Allie and Hedy. There is also a sub-plot about Allie's work involving a client who sexually harasses her then fails to pay for her services.

Even though I ticked the "Contains Spoilers" box I have tried to keep them to a minimum as a thriller won't be very thrilling if you know too much. As mentioned before, the acting is good and the plot is fairly plausible till the climax when it becomes a fairly standard confrontation between the two protagonists. There isn't too much violence and what there is isn't all that graphic, there is however a fair amount of sexual content and nudity which I suppose some viewers might feel uncomfortable with.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Awesome Movie!, 16 August 2008

Author: madina_lake_are_great from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

An innocent Flat Share ad opens the door to murderous, unrelenting terror in this pulse-pounding psychological shocker.

After an unfaithful fiancé leaves her abruptly, single, young New Yorker Allie Jones (Bridget Fonda) advertises for a flat-mate to share her spacious apartment. But when mousy Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) moves in, she doesn't just take over Allie's spare bedroom. She takes over her clothes, her boyfriend, her identity...and then tries to take her life.

Before Allie's eyes, Hedra makes a startling transformation - the perfect room-mate becomes the perfect nightmare.

I love a good stalker/psycho movie and this lived up to all my expectations. Bridget Fonda was great as Allie but it was Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance that made the movie so brilliant for me.

There are some shocking scenes in the movie that were brilliantly done and suited the movie perfectly. All-in-all, it was just amazing!

Best quote of the movie: "I can be butch when I have to, I get it from my mother."

Best scene of the movie: The scene where Hedra kills Sam. It was very well done.

I give it 8/10.

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