(Another reason to marry a Goofy Guido instead of a Rich Yuppie…)
CAST: Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson, Elizabeth Lawrence, Kyle Secor, Claudette Nevins, Nancy Fish.
DIRECTOR: Joseph Ruben
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and strong argument for never dating anyone who lives in a beach house and drives a Mercedes.
There was a period starting in 1990, when she hit pay-dirt as the “ho-with-a-heart-of-gold” in PRETTY WOMAN, all the way to 2001, when she won “Best Actress” for her bravura turn in ERIN BROCKOVICH, that Julia Roberts could do no wrong. Heck, she could’ve played a crackwhore peddling drugs to middle-schoolers and still would have probably received a Distinguished Service Award from the Los Angeles Public Schools agency. In fact, there are unconfirmed reports that thousands of men across the nation, in the years following the release of PRETTY WOMAN, decided to marry the hookers they were banging and make honest women out of them. Would I make this shit up?
That’s how strong J. Ro’s mo-jo was in her day. Memo to the Twitter Generation: your Kristen Stewarts and Dakota Fannings ain’t got nothing on the Divine Ms. Roberts during her prime. But they can probably drink her bathwater from that time.
In SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, Roberts plays Laura Burney. Laura is married to rich yuppie Martin (Patrick Bergin), who is some sort of financial whiz whose salary allows him to have: (1) an art-deco mansion on the beach; (2) a luxury sports car; (3) a state-of-the-art gym right in his mansion; and (4) the general air of a rich asshole. What I have found in my life is that, generally speaking, the more white collar-successful a guy is, the worse he is in bed. So when we meet Laura for the first time, she understandably looks like a cat that has lived next to a firing range for most of its life: a little jumpy. Methinks she needs to hang out with construction workers, waiters, and Guidos instead. Girl, sex-wise, blue-collar is where it's at. Your world... will be rocked. You’ll be walking around with a smile on your face for weeks.
But I digress. Again. Of course, to be completely fair, the fact that Martin, you know, beats the crap out of her every week or so may have something to do with her general unhappiness, as well. Yes, folks… you read that right. Our Martin is an asshole who thinks his success allows him to lift a hand to his woman. And our poor Laura seems to be content to turn the other cheek to this treatment. It would be admirable if it weren’t so sad. I mean, from their one sex scene, Martin doesn’t exactly perform like someone so awesome you’d forgive him for the occasional shin-kick or bitch-slap thrown your way. In other words: Laura, darling, we need to talk…
Fortunately, Laura turns out to be a more crafty chick than neither we nor her douchebag husband gave her credit for. Turns out she’s been plotting an escape from him for some time now. To wit, she has secretly been: (1) taking swimming lessons; (2) stashing away huge amounts of money; and (3) trying to find the perfect opportunity to, you know, “accidentally” get lost at sea. Since everyone knows she can’t swim, her disappearance will logically chalked up to drowning. I have to say I’m somewhat impressed with our little Laura…
Sure enough, Laura doesn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. After her weekly beating (you guys think I’m kidding, but I assure you I am not), Martin take Laura to go sailing with one of their neighbors. The stars must have aligned for Laura, because everything falls into place: a stormy night, big waves, and Martin too busy doing “sailor-man-stuff” with their neighbor to notice her, you know, jumping overboard.
Long story short, Laura swims back to their beach house under cover of darkness, grabs some clothes, her secret stash of cash, tosses her wedding ring into the toilet, and jumps on the next Greyhound bound for… well, we’re not exactly sure yet. But the fact that Martin The Choad is still back on the boat, freaking out and screaming “Laura! Laura! Laura! Laura!” like a little bitch, while she is speeding away to parts unknown for a new life, is enough to make us rejoice a little and dance a jig. Take that, fucker…
Anyhow, the Greyhound eventually dumps Laura in lovely and exotic… Cedar Falls, Iowa. Hey, look what the hell were you expecting? Ibiza? Capri? Schmucks, please… At any rate, Laura starts the long process of turning herself into… “Sarah Waters.” As Sarah, Laura does the following: (1) rents out a house that is Martin-free; (2) leaves the handtowels in the bathroom in a total disarray - something Martin would’ve given her the Knuckle Sandwich for back home; and (3) makes the acquaintance of a hot dork named Ben (Kevin Anderson) - and let’s just say Ben seriously needs a haircut. He’s not a Goofy Guido, but at least he doesn’t throw Laura across the room whenever his dinner is a minute or two late to the table. Baby steps, you know?
Is it happily ever after for Laura, er, Sarah and Ben? Don’t bet on it, because unbeknownst to our Cedar Falls couple, one wife-beating financial wizard back in Boston has just discovered that his thought-to-have-drowned wife was actually a frequent face at the local gym, where she - oh, shit - took swimming lessons. This revelation, and the fact that the plumbing at the beach house is apparently worthless because it can‘t even flush wedding rings properly, makes Martin realize that he’s been seriously punked. Ha ha, Take that, fucker.
I don’t have to tell you folks that Martin basically turns into the Terminator, only much scrawnier - and with a 70’s porn star mustache. Soon, it becomes his sole mission to find Laura and take her back, no matter what it takes. So, I suppose you could say that Laura is basically Sarah Conner now, only with bigger lips.
Will Martin The Terminator find Sarah Waters-Connor AKA Laura? And what does he plan to do when he finds her? Besides mop the floor with her, that is. Will Ben be able to protect Laura? Or is Ben the one needing protecting? How will Laura defend herself from someone who is basically the T-2000, only scrawnier? How, I ask?
Who knows. All I can tell Laura is this: if you somehow escape Martin for good, find yourself a nice sweet Guido, have lots of babies, and open an Italian restaurant where all your kids can work as waiters.
That’s what I’m doing. Except for the babies part. But that’s not for lack of trying.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: I wrote in the intro that Julia Roberts has the uncanny ability to win audiences over. That is never more true than in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY. If it weren’t for her empathic, sensitive performance as the abused Laura Burney, this film would be an average thriller and nothing more. With Roberts in the central role, though, the movie rises a bit above the norm. This is because we become invested in Laura’s journey and her attempts to rebuild her life. Julia Roberts makes that journey worthwhile. One scene, in particular, beautifully showcases all of Robert's strength in mining Laura's combo of quiet dignity and inner pain: the scene on the Greyhound where she obliquely tells a stranger the sad tale of her marriage. It's an affecting passage that is easily the best one in the whole movie.
Patrick Bergin and Kevin Anderson are okay in their roles, but the script doesn’t really do much to flesh them out beyond the standard “bad guy-good guy” pairing. At least Ben gets some shadings and a little backstory that give him a bit of nuance. Bergin, on the other hand, is playing a nearly one-note character. We do get an intriguing moment where Martin, arriving home after the Coast Guard has unsuccessfully searched for Laura, glimpses his reflection in a sliding glass door - and shatters it out of self-hatred. If there had been more moments like this, Martin might have made a more flesh-and-blood villain - instead of a nearly robotic one.
The plot is also surprisingly straightforward. There aren’t many twists and turns, and events unfold in an almost mechanical way. Some suspense is generated by the knowledge that Martin is closing in on Laura, while she herself is completely unaware of this fact. Hitchcock defined suspense as the audience knowing more than the characters onscreen do, and that is certainly the case here. Still, you can’t help but feel like more suspense should have been created by Laura's situation. My theory is that the script could’ve used some complications to keep things from being too linear.
In the end, it’s Julia Roberts who saves SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY. Without her, this would’ve been a rote thriller. With her, it is a slightly above average thriller buoyed by waves of emotional depth that stem from her commanding central performance. Now, that’s talent…
