SINGLE WHITE FEMALE 1992 (2024)

When an 11^th-hour betrayal results in softwaredesigner Allison Jones kicking live-in fiancé Sam Rawson out of herrent-controlled apartment, our despondent, titular SWF hastily places a classified ad (againstthe better judgment warnings of friend and neighbor Graham Knox) for aroommate.

Enter Rizzoli Bookstore clerk Hedra Carlson; timid, sweet-natured,and studiously amorphous; she’s like a substance incapable of reflecting light, onlyabsorbing it. Girlish and diffident in the face of Allison’s easygoing poise, resourcefulwhere Allison is self-doubting and insecure, indistinct and shapeless to Allison’s urban sleek,the women are less an odd couple than strangely analogous opposites. Indeed, Hedra sees in Allison animage of a life she’d very much like to have. Literally.

Allison and Hedra From the Greek, Hedra is a word used in geometry to signify many faces

In short order, roommates blossom into girlfriends (Hedy!Allie!), girlfriends bond as sisters, and sisterhood evolves into a kind of free-form female family unit into which the only male allowed is Buddy the dog. Sure, Hedra’s alittle clingy, a tad furtive, maybe even a little too watchful(“(It's) like she's studyin’ ya. Like you was a play, or a book, or a set ofblueprints!” – All About Eve); butfor a time, each woman finds in the other what they are individually lacking. Allie gets a companion to help stave off her fear of being alone, Hedy finds someone who fills a deep, unarticulated emotionalvoid.

Family Portrait Playing on the TV set behind them is the 1957 Rita Hayworth film Fire Down Below, about a friendship torn apart by romantic jealousy

AlthoughSingle White Female features an abundance of intriguing subthemes: urban fear, feminine identity, lesbianism, sexual harassment, duality, women's tendency to invalidate female friendships in deference to men—Schroeder's uncluttered approach to the material and the film's familiar, easy-to-identify-with premise serves it extraordinarily well. The intelligent screenplay (adapted by Don Roos from John Lutz's 1990 novel SWF Seeks Same) simply lets the worst-case-rental nightmare scenario play out in accordance to the well-worn tropes of the classic stalker/suspense thriller, leaving plenty of room for the actors to fully and dimensionally inhabit their characters. The result is that instead of having the characters moved along by the demands of the plot, the characters themselves, as realized by the fine performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, dominateSingle White Female.

As the film is structured, we know from the outset that the roommate situation will be problematic, just as we also know, this being a Hollywood thriller, that the central conflict must resolve itself with a sufficiently over-the-top, crowd-pleasing payoff: usually either cathartic (payback) or ironic (surprise twist). Thus, it's all the more appreciated that Barbet Schroeder manages to successfully subvert the plot's predictability by giving emphasis to the relationship between Allison and Hedra, making it feel authentic, while at the same time oddly discordant. The chemistry between these two women, vacillating between friendly, sororal, co-dependent, and adversarial...is the propulsive, compelling source of the film's suspense and considerably well-played chills.

The Happy Couple

When an arthouse darling like Barbet Schroeder (More-1969, The Valley Obscured by Clouds- 1972) makes a genre film, watching itis a little like seeing your sensitive, intellectual nephew running with the “wrongcrowd”: there's concern as to which will exert the greater influence over the other.

Happily, I think Barbet Schroder’s arthouse sensibilities fairly dominate the first two-thirds ofSingle White Female, effectively drawing the viewer into the psychological drama before the melodrama and genre predictability of the final third takes over. He successfully turns both the city and apartment building into participating characters in the story, stressing the film's duality themes and appearances-can-be-deceiving angle by making both New York City and Allison's apartment building look simultaneously inviting and sinister.

"At least there's never a problem with privacy!"
Single White Female plays with the idea of strength and weakness, independence and helplessness. By all appearances, Allison is the character who has her life together, but the film allows her to be the one to harbor some of the more deep-rooted flaws. She is the first roommate to invade the other's privacy, yet she's made uncomfortable by Hedra's at-ease-with-herself informality (specifically, when she undresses in front of her). In the end, the women bond over the affectionate gesture of exchanged housewarming gifts.

Barbet Schroeder displays such a sure touch with his handlingof both the characters and the more rote aspects of the suspense thriller that the film’s third act,wherein Schroeder or the producers bow to the pressure to provide the ticket-buyingpublic with the mayhem they crave, strikes the film's sole false note. While I have to concede that the violent conclusion is well executed and effectively delivers exactly what is expected of it (suspense, jeopardy, jump cuts); there's no denying that it's an improvement over the sprawling, drawn-out ending of the source novel; I nevertheless can't shake the feeling that it is an ending more genre-mandated than organic to the subtle, insinuating menace characterizing the rest of the film. I enjoy the ending for what it is, but it wouldn't surprise me were it revealed one day tobe the work of another director entirely.

Single White Femaleis a thriller first and foremost, a genre nail-biter calculated to deliver consistentchills. But in the way it seriously cranks up the fear factor by delving intothe dark side of duality and the elemental search for self, it reminds me agreat deal of so many of my most beloved identity-merge films: Persona (1966), Dead Ringers (1988), LesBiches (1968), Performance(1970), Mulholland Drive (2001), Vertigo (1958), and Black Swan (2010).

An innovative director with a strong visual style and a comprehensionof cinema language is a boon to any film, but such gifts are especially welcome in a genreflick. While there are many directors who’ve distinguished themselves throughtheir association with a particular type of film: Ernst Lubitsch (comedies), JohnFord (westerns), Alfred Hitchco*ck (suspense thriller), and John Carpenter (horror); most would contend that plot-driven, trope-reliant films, whose structures require conformity to brand, don't always leave a lot of elbow room for artistic expression.

Skeletons in the Closet Allison discovers somethingscarier than wire hangers in Hedra's closet: a wardrobe duplicate to hers

Premise and setup are the stars of the suspense thriller, thedirector earning accolades only to the extent to which their talents contributeto the successful realization of the narrative’s requisite “payoffs”: surprise,scares, intensity, suspense, etc. Mind you, this isn’t easy, and any directorcapable of pulling off an effective thriller deserves credit, but the thrillersthat tend to stick with me are the ones that manage to follow the genre dots while still bearing the imprint of a director’s unique world view and artistic perspective.

Barbet Schroeder approaches Single White Female as though it were a character study in whichone of the characters just happens to be a psychopath. The time and care spenton defining the relationship between Allie and Hedy, shading it with a comfortable intimacy and credible eccentricity (Allie accidentally catches Hedymasturbating, but instead of turning away, she lingers, watching) lends thisfilm the stamp of quirky distinction.

A similar attribute is Barbet Schroeder’s use of mise-en-scèneto amplify Single White Female’sthemes. For example, the internal life of Allison, a character whose anxietiesare fueled by insecurity (fear of being alone) and betrayals (her formerbusiness partner, her fiancé, and her client), is reflected in her externalenvironment.

Allison’s apartment—spacious butjust cramped enough to convey urban confinement—is in a building whose derelictcondition signals neglect and inattention. The rooms of the apartment all face acircular foyer, which, once the roommates’ lives and likenesses begin to merge,creates an element of disorientation and distortion. Meanwhile, privacy (orrather, its lack) is vividly dramatized by the many angles, doorways, and alcoves people use to conceal themselves or suddenly pop into view from behind; air vents that serve as sound amplifiers to neighboring apartments; and telephone answering machines thateither divulge too much or are too easily erased.

As the film progresses, we learn that both Allison and Hedra have the same problem of repeating mistakes. It's revealed that Hedy is in the habit of attaching herself to people in an attempt to recapture and/or recreate a seminal relationship from her childhood. Meanwhile, Allie shows signs of being a serial bad-decision-maker. She bounces from one disloyal relationship (a failed business partner) to another(a faithless fiancé) to another (hastily opening her apartment to a woman she knows nothing about) to another (a business client whose intentions she misreads).

I love scary movies, especially those rooted in the kind of mundane, everyday anxieties we all share. Alienation, urban paranoia, trust issues...the more the horror emanates from the basic insecurities that make up the human personality, the more intensely I relate to what is going on on the screen.

The Ansonia Apartments Barbet Schroeder's homage to Rosemary's Baby

Like most kids, I loved to be frightened by monster movies. The worlds of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman were so alien to my own existence that no matter how spooky things got, the essential "otherness" of what I was watching reinforced my subliminal safety-net reminding me that what I was watching was fantasy. Movies like these were capable of giving me a shudder, a shock, or a jolt of surprise, but they were too remote in context to ever really get under my skin. All that changed in 1967 whenAlfred Hitchco*ck'sPsycho hadits broadcast television premiere. Suddenly the monster was human, the weapon a familiar household object, the victim undeserving of her fate, the violence not "safe" and bloodless, and the site (most horrifically) a personal safe haven of privacy.
My 9-year-old mind was blown. The kindertrauma spectacle of Janet Leigh’sshower murder opened a veritable Pandora's Box of everyday horror in my young life.

1968-Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinated. San Francisco (where welived) terrorized by The Zodiac Killer. I see Rosemary’s Baby at the movies and have the holy hell scared out ofme.