Death Becomes Her doesn’t really work on a story or character level at all, but the central idea is too tantalizing and the cast is having too much fun for that to matter much. Meryl Streep plays a mid-career star of stage and screen for whom plastic surgery is no longer getting the job done, so she turns to a potion offered by a Beverly Hills mystery woman (an ageless Isabella Rossellini). There are unintended consequences, especially when her beleaguered husband (Bruce Willis) and vindictive rival (Goldie Hawn) become involved. Streep is dynamite, especially in an opening musical number that’s supposed to be tacky but still shows off her musical and comedic skills, while Hawn (once she escapes an unfortunate fat suit) digs into the deliciousness of her part. Yet Willis might be giving the best performance, at least on a comedic level; he’s all wide eyes and stammers and puppy yelps, especially once the two women start bouncing him around. Director Robert Zemeckis, working from a truly haphazard screenplay by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, seems most intrigued by the special-effects potential of the central conceit—especially once bodies prove capable of carrying on, despite suffering extreme damage. His work is always stronger, however, when the effects are complementary (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump), rather than the focus (The Polar Express, Pinocchio), as they come to be here.
(4/21/2026)
