Customer Reviews

Sleeping With the Enemy [VHS]

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Joseph Ruben has fashioned a by-the-numbers, glossy, engrossing, if trashy and predictable, thriller. It is imminently watchable, of course, and features the mega-watt smile of our fave, Julia Roberts, who improbably dons theatrical costumes in the midst of a semi-breakdown to the tune of Brown-Eyed Girl. The men around Julia, both her over-the-top psychopathic husband and her would-be new, soft boyfriend (Patrick Bergin and Kevin Andersen, respectively) are completely dispensable, and Ruben knows this: he keeps us monumentally focused on the beguiling Ms. Roberts throughout. It is easy to forget and forgive lapses in credibility (there are many), and the opening twenty minutes have a glossy, antiseptic queasiness about them that seem to be setting up a much more deft and daring thriller. All of that vanishes, along with common sense, but it hardly matters. This movie is one you can watch over and over and over again, a bunch of chips nearby: it moves quickly, harmlessly, and gives you what you want when you just don't feel much like thinking.

I remember seeing this movie when it came out in the theater and jumping out of my seat. The cruel, punishing and sadistic husband of Julia's matches Julia's scenes scene for scene in his acting. Onw watches this movie and wonders how could a man with all he has, money, a multimillion dollar house, and a perfect, beautiful wife like Julia treat her like that??? The only problems with this movie is that Julia flees only to end up in a house in Iowa for $700 dollars a month!!! How can she afford that with no job? And how did she get a job in the library even with that annoying bearded guys help with no social security number?? Of course we all know that a big scary house was necessary to build thrills and suspense and that it does! The ending is TERRIFIC as is the acting.

With the beginning scene in "Sleeping With the Enemy" of a nice, handsome husband and a beautiful, smiling wife living in a lovely, rich house, this movie soon breaks the stereotype perception of an abusive relationship by showing that everything that glitters is not necessarily gold.

Julia Roberts, with a combination of a sense of planning and cleverness, fear and hope, and a desperate will to survive, does the only thing she can - she leaves while faking her own death. (Any abused man or woman will probably be mesmerized by some of the scenes and the feelings evoked in this intense movie.)

The new lifestyle she slowly, but surely creates for herself, against the backdrop of her husband piecing together her escape and his savage determination to find her creates a savvy suspense thriller that could be a classic in anyone's home movie library.

This is a great movie that I think is trying to teach the world that this kind of abuse does exist. It is very hard to get out and stay safe and there should be strong laws about violence. There isn't ever enough protection when you try to get out of that kind of relationship. Most times it does come down to him or you. This is so sad that people still don't get it and the laws can't help.

"Sleeping With the Enemy" is probably my favorite of Julia Roberts' movies. This film has so much suspense that you immediately get wrapped up in the lives of all of the characters.

The story centers around a woman who is in a marriage from hell. Her husband abuses her and keeps her confined in a large beach house. His possession of her mind, body, and spirit is terrifying. She finally gets enough courage to get away from him and leave him once and for all. However, she has to fake her death to do so. She flees and starts over in a small town where her blind mother resides. All is well until her husband discovers that she's not really dead and hunts her down to reclaim her.

This is an excellent nail-biter that will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat! I highly recommend this film!

When I went to this movie I thought it was a spy movie. Nope it is not what a shock. It is about domestic violence. Many people I have spoken with think this is a very good movie. I think they like it more for the syspense factor from what I can tell. Perhaps someone can gain some compassion from this movie because it feels this way to be in an abusive relationship. They really did their research or someone knew something when directing and writing the screenplay. I know nothing about the book and am not focusing about the socioeconic status of the woman of the book vs the movie like the previous reviewer. Unless you are comparing and constrasing the 2 for a term paper forget about that. I do not think that is really important to the story as domestic violence can occur in all economic levels. When you see stress of the wife trying not to upset her husband with stupid little things like arranging the cans of food in a cabnet. This is what some abusers are really like. Anything and Nothing will set off an abuser like that. The Victim gets punished for these things as an excuse for him to get out his anger or control just like the movie. This really lets you know what it is like to be in an abusive relationship from the inside. If you let yourself you can get into the character just as a movie like (A Beautiful Mind) you can get inside a character. They are totally different movies, but they have a similar delivery style. This is a very disturbing movie and I would not recomend it for young people unless it is in the context of teaching about domestic violence or perhaps preventing it. Next to being in an abusive relationship this is the closest you can get unless they make another movie. This would be a good movie for someone counselling domestic violence victums or anyone going into the psychology field. If you are a student of one of those diciplines you might want to watch this to desinsitize yourself to what people may tell you and to familiarize yourself with abuse.
If not this is another syspense movie that is really well done and some people find it entertaining. I think it is more educational, but the delivery is entertaining to some people. I think it is just that some people seem to crave violent movies of all types and do not think about the message even when someone goes to the trouble to have a real plot and storyline.
I hope that helps.

Julia Roberts plays a battered wife who is reaching her breaking point with her obsessive, controlling , and abusive husband. So she fakes her death during a storm on a sail boat and runs away. She changes her identity and settles down in a small, peaceful town. Trying to forget about her husband and her past, she starts dating her neighbor and begins enjoying her new life of freedom! But little does she know that her psychotic husband is hot on her trail. And is ready to get serious revenge on her. But little does he know that things can always backfire. And a person can only be pushed so far before they give you a taste of your own medacine. Full of action- packed thrills and super suspense! A classic along the lines of "Enough", "Dolores Claiborne" and "Fatal Attraction"!

Julia Roberts, she of the million-dollar smile, shines in this otherwise dull, by-the-numbers thriller. Patrick Bergen glowers his way through the movie like a villian straight out of a silent melodrama. You expect him to be kicking widows and orphans out on the street, not traumatizing Julia Roberts.

Hokey dialogue, a contrived plot, and murky cinematography make this a lackluster gem in Julia's career. The movie is worth a watch, however, just to see Julia in male drag when she's trying to visit her mom in the nursing home. If Hilary Swank had been unavailable to film "Boys Don't Cry," Julia would have made one hell of a replacement!

The husband in the movie displays the classic signs of an abuser. He tries to keep Laura under control, he must have the towels and cans arranged in a certain order, he accuses her of having eyes for a doctor who lives on the same beach as they do (even though she insists that she doesn't know him) and hits her, he wants to keep her confined to the house, and he tries to keep her from seeing friends or family (especially her mother). So-so movie, but portrayal of abusive husband is accurate.

Nancy Price is a spell-binding writer who knows how to dodge every Hollywood cliché, as well as any happy ending Hollywood can imagine. Julia Roberts had only one man to run from-the Sara Burney in this novel has three.
The first man she must escape is her husband, a controlling martinet who wants a child-wife to discipline and abuse. But two other dangerous men wait where Sara tries to hide-every woman in my reading group has met men like these: men who see women as the adversary to be tamed and used. The boy next door craves a sex object. The young professor distrusts women: he wants a housekeeper-wife who will further his career. In the world they see, everyone sleeps with the enemy.
But Sara isn't a child, an object or a servant. She senses her danger and escapes, covering her tracks, leaving no dead man inside her door for the police to find. She's going back, Martin Burney's widow, to claim her happy ending: the home she had to abandon. Sara dreams of it as the book closes-every room's light and scent, every creak of the floor, every dish in the cupboards.
My reading group cheered as we imagined Sara, home safe, ready to look for a marriage not shared by enemies.