So many movies I watch to review for The Legionnaire contain content that is difficult to consume as a practicing Catholic.  Because of this, I frequently go to Confession.  It is not that it is intended to be pornographic or violent, I just have a sneaking suspicion that those behind the cameras have a different idea of what constitutes deviant material.  Because of this, recently my desire has been to view more classic Hollywood fare.  You can bemoan the films of a bygone era for being controlled and not broadly representing American society.  I cannot argue with this assessment, but at least they do not make me feel gross on a variety of levels.  With modern cinema, I have to essentially frack for some glimmer of goodness.  This is what I went through while watching Death Becomes Her (1992), an Academy Award winning production with a cast of unlikable characters.  I did get something to discuss from a Catholic perspective by the end, but for most of it, I did not hold out much hope.

It is hope to which Broadway star Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) is clinging with her new flop of a musical.  At the debut, which people are walking out of before it barely starts, are Dr. Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) and his girlfriend, Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn).  Dr. Menville is the only one who is entertained by the show, mostly because he is attracted to Madeline.  Any woman might be worried with such behavior from their significant other, but Helen has an added reason for being nervous.  Her and Madeline had been high school rivals, with Helen blaming the actress for stealing every man she ever loved.  As a test of his loyalty, Helen brings Dr. Menville backstage to meet Madeline.  His fawning does nothing to assuage Helen’s fears.  Despite his assurances that he loves Helen, the next scene we see is Madeline and Dr. Menville getting married.  Helen does not take this development well.  Seven years go by and she becomes a cat lady, with too many to count and extra pounds around her waist.  She has let everything go, including paying the rent, until she is forcibly removed by the police and placed in a mental health institution.  While there, she speaks of nothing but Madeline, and when her therapist makes the comment that Helen needs to “get back” to her old self, she hears nothing but an invitation for revenge.  We then jump seven more years ahead and Madeline and Dr. Menville are living in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, California, in a large mansion.  Age is taking a toll on both of them.  She copes with it by near constant visits to beauticians and other businesses to keep up a supposed youthful appearance, while he drinks.  The alcohol has brought on shaky hands, meaning he can no longer be a surgeon as he had once practiced.  Before heading out for one of her many salon appointments, Madeline gets an invitation from Helen for the launch of a book the latter has written on keeping young.  While at the beauty parlor, Madeline is denied a procedure usually only done every six months.  With this, she is approached by a strange man with a twitchy eye named Chagall (Ian Ogilvy), who gives her a card of a woman he claims can solve all of Madeline’s aging problems.  She dismisses this at first, and later goes to Helen’s book signing.  Expecting to see someone overweight, Madeline and Dr. Menville instead are greeted by a fresh-faced Helen.  Madeline does her usual passive aggressive thing, jealous of Helen’s appearance.  Following the party, she slips out of the house to see her thirty-something lover, Dakota (Adam Storke), but he is busy with a tryst of less advanced years.  Feeling even worse, Madeline locates the business card given her by Chagall at the bottom of her purse and drives to the address.  I guess when you are a well-known celebrity and apparently far from God, you do not recognize evil when you see it.  Never mind the foreboding, castle-like estate wreathed in lightning, or the muscle-bound men that lead her inside.  Madeline is slightly taken aback, but when she sees the, er, exuberant beauty of Lisle von Rhuman (Isabella Rossallini), Chagall’s contact, she drops any pretense of dread.  Lisle shows Madeline a potion that will keep her youthful forever, demonstrating its effectiveness by cutting Madeline’s hand and immediately healing it with the pink, glowing liquid.  Upon paying an exorbitant amount for the elixir and taking it, Madeline leaves, transformed back into her twenty-something self.  As this takes place, Helen visits Dr. Menville at home.  With the problems he has been having with Madeline, it is not too difficult for her to seduce him and convince him that they need to finally be together.  His first idea is divorce, but Helen insists they must murder Madeline.  Helen exits just before Madeline’s return.  Instead of sticking to their plan, though, Dr. Menville confronts Madeline when she continues to taunt him for his failings as a man.  The altercation turns violent, and Madeline ends up falling down the long staircase, apparently breaking every bone in her body.  In his panic, Dr. Menville calls Helen, who is not pleased that he veered from their scheme.  Believing Dr. Menville to be inept, she drives over in time to see him bringing Madeline back into the house after their disastrous trip to the hospital.  While Madeline is still technically alive, her broken bones are protruding and her flesh is beginning to gray. Thus, Dr. Menville goes to work on making it look as if blood is still pumping from her dead heart.  This is when Helen comes in, and Madeline puts a shotgun to the author’s stomach and pulls the trigger.  When Helen stands up with a hole through her torso, it is evident that she, too, had seen Lisle.  As Helen and Madeline trade blows that causes them no pain, they slowly realize that it is pointless and decide to make amends.  They also agree to share Dr. Menville because he can continue to make them look less corpse-like.  However, this means he must drink Lisle’s potion.  They knock him out and bring him to her estate, but he refuses to take the same deal, running off with the vial and eventually managing to escape.  The final scene takes place thirty-seven years later at Dr. Menville’s funeral, with a barely held together Helen and Madeline in attendance.

The last we see of Helen and Madeline in Death Becomes Her is of them falling down the steps in front of the church where the funeral is held.  In the intervening decades, they had been doing their best, and horribly failing, at keeping up their exteriors and fighting decay.  What they are doing is violating natural law, a phrase that is repeated a couple of times in the movie.  It is interesting that it is said because they mean that it is not right that we mortals live forever.  Yet, what is the source of that belief?  The problem lies in the fact that, as I asserted in the introduction, society has fallen so far from God.  People like what is seen in movies, and the celebrities in them seek out so-called solutions to aging because they do not understand the purpose of their lives.  To be somewhat fair on famous people (though I do not know what this says for the rest of us), they have an image to maintain.  It is part of their job to be in the public eye, but that is also not ideal.  I say that because as we age, we are reminded more frequently that we will one day die.  Without a relationship with God, is there anything to look forward to?  I get it.  In our day-to-day lives, it is difficult to see God’s hand in our lives. Further, perhaps there has been something that has happened to you that makes it difficult for you to believe what Christians have to tell you on these matters.  So many give up because they either find Christianity lacks the answers they think they need, or they have not a the radical experience of conversion to God that is so sustaining but also needs renewal.  This has little to do with the movie, but I feel it is symptomatic of the characters you see in the movie and how they cope with their lives.  Particularly for Helen and Madeline, if you are always young, death will forever be a part of that abstract horizon.  Luckily, Dr. Menville understands the folly of his ways by the end.  There is a moment as he is trying to escape where he is dangling by his suspenders over a fall that will surely kill him.  Helen and Madeline are there, urging him to drink the potion and save himself.  What he realizes is the cost, and the selfish nature of wanting to live forever.  At the funeral, the person giving the eulogy (John Ingle) claims that Dr. Menville eventually found everlasting happiness in his family and friends.  That is nice, too, but it is God that is the true source of such joy.

There are some mildly inappropriate scenes in Death Becomes Her where the female form is revealed in suggestive ways, but no full nudity.  As I have alluded to up to this point, the characters do not behave in ways that made me sympathetic to them.  Dr. Menville does have the turnaround at the end, but is that enough to justify watching the whole thing?  You can decide for yourself.