Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Seeking out a solid psychological thriller is always a mixed bag experience because it’s a genre that paints in very broad strokes. Once you start watching enough of them, you begin to notice patterns in the form of recurring motifs and storylines, which can help or hurt a particular film depending on a number of variables. If the plot is generic or contrived, for instance, you might not feel any suspense because you can typically predict the beats and reveals long before any “big reveal” arrives. Sometimes it kills the movie, but for films like 1992’s Single White Femalelatching onto genre conventions is exactly the move to make.
The whole thing follows your typical “person living with me isn’t who she says she is” kind of story, which is exacerbated when our antagonist slowly infiltrates and steals the identity of our protagonist, resulting in an evil twin scenario you’d expect to see in your average soap opera.
I went into Single White Female with guarded enthusiasm because I was expecting some sort of committee-written thriller designed for mass appeal, which, in most cases, ends up being garbage. While I still stand by my assessment that Single White Female plays out like your typical psychological game of cat and mouse, it’s elevated to stratospheric heights thanks to Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh sharing top billing and absolutely going for it here.
In any other context, with any other talent, Single White Female would fall apart before you even finish the first act. As a cynical fan who’s seen too many thrillers, I recognize a good one when I see it, whether it’s doing something entirely original or not. My verdict: the film is far from original, but I’m sticking around for the characters, so I don’t care.
Single White Female Earns Every Trope
At the outset, Single White Female gives us a number of convenient setups that quickly fill in the exposition and allow us to watch the characters interact under extenuating circumstances. When software developer Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) breaks up with her unfaithful fiancé Sam (Steven Weber), she suddenly needs a new roommate. She puts out a classified ad for a single white female and settles on Hedy Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who seems like a perfect fit.
Hedy is awkward but well-meaning, or at least she seems that way at first. It quickly becomes apparent that she forms a co-dependent relationship with Allison that’s very much one-sided. Allison is simply looking for a roommate to help with rent. Hedy is looking for a ride-or-die bestie. It’s charming at first, like when Hedy tells off Mitchell Myerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), one of Allison’s potential clients who gets a little too handsy with her. Matters escalate when Allison reconciles with Sam and expresses her desire to find her own place with her lover.
On one hand, I get it. In any other context, Hedy has every right to be upset, especially after moving in and getting situated in her new home. In this context, though, Hedy goes completely off the rails, and her desire to stay close to Allison manifests in disturbing ways, like dressing exactly like her, getting an identical haircut, making appearances at sex clubs while posing as her unsuspecting roommate, and trying to seduce Sam.
Having just watched Macaulay Culkin’s The Good Son (1993) this past week, I’m wondering what was in the water because Hedy also kills a dog and pretends it’s an accident. It’s an off-screen death, but we knew its name was Buddy, so that took the wind out of my sails for a minute, if I’m being entirely honest. Just like head-smashing in modern elevated horror movies, harming animals was a very effective way to get a reaction from moviegoers. This is just another example of how the film leans into its tropes, but its leads use them well.
Convenient Setups Are A Necessity Here
If Single White Female didn’t allow itself a few convenient setups, things wouldn’t be able to escalate nearly as quickly. Allison working as a freelance software developer allows her to be home more frequently so we can focus on the relationship dynamic between Allison, Hedy, and Sam. Thanks to how available both Allison and Hedy are, they’re able to establish a bond rather quickly and become besties before Hedy completely loses her mind and becomes the worst roommate ever. This works especially well for Hedy’s personality type because her clinginess and subsequent feelings of rejection don’t feel sudden or like they’re coming from nowhere.
While Bridget Fonda is a powerhouse lead in Single White Femaleit’s Jennifer Jason Leigh’s willingness to go all in on Hedy’s neuroses that makes the film work as well as it does. When she fully transitions into looking like her roommate, Hedy is terrifying because she’s doing it without a hint of irony. Seriously, for a second, imagine your roommate coming home dressed exactly like you, down to the smallest detail. Now imagine they start talking like you and perfectly mimicking your body language while their motives remain unclear. You’d be ripping up your lease in no time if this was something you had to deal with.
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE SCORE
The on-screen dynamic between Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh cannot be overstated in Single White Female. I’ll be the first to admit that the narrative structure it latches onto leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to originality, but the film takes a relatively generic setup and turns it into something next-level thanks to the acting talent involved. If you’re looking for a reliable thriller that thrives within its supposed limitations, you can stream Single White Female on Netflix as of this writing.
