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Sleeping with the Enemy (1991 film)
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Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 psychological thriller film based on a 1987 novel of the same name by Nancy Price, starring Julia Roberts, who escapes from her abusive, obsessive husband, played by Patrick Bergin. She captures the attention of a kindly gentleman, played by Kevin Anderson.
Tagline: Self-Defense is not murder.
score by Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film Music Award, 1992, and the film was nominated for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for 1992 in four categories: Best Actress (Roberts), Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Bergin), Best Horror Film and Best Music (Goldsmith).
a Burney (Julia Roberts) presumably has everything any woman can ever want, a beautiful home, a handsome and wealthy investment counselor husband, and any material pleasure she could desire.
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Encyclopedia
Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 psychological thriller film based on a 1987 novel of the same name by Nancy Price, starring Julia Roberts, who escapes from her abusive, obsessive husband, played by Patrick Bergin. She captures the attention of a kindly gentleman, played by Kevin Anderson.
Tagline: Self-Defense is not murder.
Awards
The score by Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film Music Award, 1992, and the film was nominated for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for 1992 in four categories: Best Actress (Roberts), Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Bergin), Best Horror Film and Best Music (Goldsmith).
Plot summary
Laura Burney (Julia Roberts) presumably has everything any woman can ever want, a beautiful home, a handsome and wealthy investment counselor husband, and any material pleasure she could desire. However, her marriage is not all that it seems.
Her abusive, possessive husband Martin (Patrick Bergin), is a controlling man who one day interprets her interaction with a neighbor at their beach home as flirting and strikes her in the face and kicks her as she lies helpless on the floor.
Laura sees her way out by planning and faking her own disappearance at sea in a storm off Cape Cod near the couple's luxurious ocean-view home. Martin attends her funeral when her body is not found.
In flashback, we see how she swims to safety, having taken swimming lessons at the YWCA. She secretly returns home, retrieves some clothing and cash she had hidden away in preparation, disguises herself and leaves home after flushing her wedding ring down the toilet.
Laura moves to Cedar Falls, Iowa. In preparation she has told her husband that her mother died, and pretended to attend the funeral, but secretly she had moved her to a nursing home in Iowa. She rents a modest house and adopts the name Sara Waters.
Picking apples from a neighbor's garden one day she is caught by the owner, Ben Woodward (Kevin Anderson), who teases her about stealing them. After a poor beginning, Ben asks Laura to dinner, where he tells her that he teaches drama at the local college, but Laura tells him nothing about herself.
Martin is enraged to learn from a chance phone call from a friend of Laura's from the YWCA that Laura had been taking swimming lessons. Martin believes that the friend is talking about someone else until the woman mentions the bruises on Laura's body, which Laura claimed to get from gymnastics. Martin heads off home to do detective work. He finds the ring in the toilet bowl where it failed to flush, and sets out to find her. From the Cape Cod nursing home, he finds out that Laura's mother isn't dead, and using a detective agency he traces her to her new nursing home in Iowa. He visits the blind woman, Chloe Williams (Elizabeth Lawrence), without revealing his identity.
Meanwhile Laura and Ben have a falling-out when he discovers that her real name is not Sara. They make up with a date at the college. Laura rejects a pass from Ben, and leaves. The next day she confesses that she is on the run from an abusive husband.
Martin and Laura, who is in disguise, show up at the nursing home at the same time, but they do not see one another. Posing as a policeman warning Chloe about the dangerous Martin Burney, he learns from her that her daughter is seeing a college drama teacher in nearby Cedar Falls. Martin is about to smother her with a pillow, when a nurse arrives and unknowingly thwarts him.
Martin visits the wrong college drama teacher and threatens him with a gun. The man protests that he is gay, and Martin knocks him unconscious. Martin finds Laura and Ben and clandestinely follows them to the fair and back to her home. Laura first knows something is up through a series of seemingly random mishaps: her bath overflows, her toast burns, and the canned goods in her kitchen cupboard are lined up meticulously (one of Martin's idiosyncrasies). Then she hears the Symphonie fantastique, a musical piece Martin used to like to make love to. She then hears Ben at the door. As she makes her way to the door, she sees Martin's reflection. He pulls a gun and threatens to kill Ben if she doesn't get rid of him. She talks to him through the door's security chain and begs off from their date.
After closing the door, Martin resumes his conversation with Laura. Ben, hearing them, breaks down the door and struggles with Martin, who knocks him unconscious with the butt of his pistol. He aims the gun at Ben's head.
Laura, in an effort to keep Martin from killing the now-defenseless Ben, pretends to go along with Martin's plans to take her back. However, she takes him by surprise by fighting back when she kicks him in the groin. Martin drops the gun and she manages to take control of it. She fires a single shot at Martin, just missing his head. Martin, undaunted, dares her to call the police. She tells him to stop coming closer, but Martin walks forward slowly. She reaches for the phone and does so, stating, "Come quickly. I've just killed an intruder," aiming the gun at Martin with her trembling hand.
Martin's face turns to horror and Laura shoots him three times in the chest before dropping the pistol. As a sobbing Laura collapses, Martin grabs her by the hair and points the gun to her face. But when he pulls the trigger, the gun only clicks, as all the bullets are gone. Martin sags lifelessly to the floor. As Ben slowly wakes up, Laura goes to him and they embrace. The movie ends with a closeup of Martin's body lying in the foreground with Laura's wedding ring inches from his hand.
Cast
- Julia Roberts as Laura Burney, a woman who suffers domestic violence from her husband, Martin.
- Patrick Bergin as Martin Burney, a wife-beater who tries to kill his wife Laura.
- Kevin Anderson as Ben Woodward, a drama teacher and Laura's new neighbor in Cedar Falls.
Remakes
Sleeping with the Enemy has the same storyline of 1980 Malayalam film Manjil Virinja Pookkal. The film was remade in India four times: the Hindi language films Yaraana (1995 film), Daraar (1996), Agni Sakshi (1996), and Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe (2002).
External links
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