Death Becomes Her

While it’s by no means a classic, Death Becomes Her might be more timely now than ever, considering the amount of social media scorn recently heaped upon former ingenues Meg Ryan and Renée Zellweger for their inability to remain perpetually youthful. A black comedy focused the obsessive quest to do just that, at any cost, might be better received now than it was when it premiered in 1992 — were it not for the fact that it was never a great film in the first place. That said, Death Becomes Her is not without its high points. It did, after all, win an Academy Award for visual effects, and Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn deliver enjoyably bitchy performances (although Bruce Willis seems woefully miscast). Robert Zemeckis’ directorial reach seems to exceed his grasp in this case, as the tone of this film seems too malicious for his specific talents to accommodate. If nothing else, Death is a notable example of what could be accomplished through practical effects in the days before computer graphics became the crutch of a creatively hobbled industry. While those Oscar-winning effects are often cartoonish enough to fracture the suspension of disbelief, the humor is often fun in a very bleak way even if the principle characters are universally reprehensible and the script is rife with structural problems. Sandwiched between the later Back to the Future films and Forrest Gump in Zemeckis’ catalog, Death Becomes Her seems like an aberrant misstep for a director who has always played to his strengths. That being said, there’s still something interesting about looking at this film with the benefit of hindsight. The Hendersonville Film Society will show Death Becomes Her Sunday, July 24, at 2 p.m. in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community, 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville.