Julia Roberts as a battered wife. That doesn't account for the fat lips. (Collagen, one imagines.) And neither does it account for much else. Roberts, a shallow shimmering brook, shows little sign of psychological sediment, as she stages a daring escape from her Cape Cod ice palace, heads for the heartland (a smile cleaving her face as she enters Iowa, a reflection of the Stars-and-Stripes writhing on the bus window), and sets up house in a two-story jewel right next door to the super-cool Drama coach at the local college. (Hot date: he puts her on a darkened stage, lowers a spotlit swing, shrouds her in twinkling stars, showers her with a snowfall of pillow feathers, and then puts on Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" for a montage of trying on funny hats in the wardrobe room.) But the beady-eyed husband, driven by the diabolic sounds of the Symphonie fantastique, won't let go easily. And the thrills, when they come, come on elephants' feet. With Patrick Bergin and Kevin Anderson; directed by Joseph Ruben. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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