Sleeping with the Enemy

Laura Burney has a seemingly idyllic life and a happy marriage to Martin, a successful Boston investment counselor, and they live in a luxurious home overlooking the sea of Cape Cod. Beneath Martin's charming, handsome exterior, however, is an obsessive and controlling person who has physically, emotionally, and sexually abused Laura throughout their nearly four-year marriage. Then, in a recurring pattern, he apologetically showers her with flowers and gifts.

Martin accepts the invitation of their neighbor, a doctor, for an evening sail, despite knowing that Laura fears water and cannot swim. As a severe storm unexpectedly rolls in, Martin and the doctor struggle to control the vessel. Laura is swept overboard. After an extensive Coast Guard search, Laura’s body is never recovered, and she is presumed dead from drowning, and Martin is inconsolable.

Laura is revealed to actually be alive. After secretly learning to swim, she planned to fake her own death to escape Martin's abuse. During the storm, she jumped overboard, swam ashore, and returned home. She cut her hair, donned a wig, took her stashed belongings and money, and headed to a nearby bus station.

Laura moves to Cedar Falls, Iowa. Previously, she had told Martin that her blind, stroke-impaired mother, Chloe, had died, but Laura had secretly moved Chloe to an Iowa nursing home. Laura rents a house, finds a job, and settles into a new life as "Sara Waters". Her neighbor, Ben Woodward, a young drama teacher at a local college, is attracted to Laura, though he suspects she has a chequered past. They have an agreeable date, but when a kiss turns more physical, Laura resists and demands that Ben leave. She later admits to him that she escaped an abusive marriage.

Martin learns that Laura had taken swim classes, which indicates she may still be alive. This is confirmed when he finds Laura's wedding ring in the toilet, which hadn't properly flushed as she had believed. Martin travels to Chloe's nursing home, masquerading as a detective, and learns that Chloe's "nephew" has just visited. Laura, disguised as a man, is also at the nursing home and barely misses encountering Martin. Martin discovers Laura's whereabouts and learns about Ben. He trails the couple to Laura's new house and breaks in while she and Ben are outside. Laura notices the small clues Martin deliberately left inside the house: the hand towels perfectly aligned and the contents of the kitchen cabinets lined up to Martin's exacting standards.

Martin then confronts Laura as Ben smashes the door down and attempts to subdue Martin, who knocks him unconscious. As Martin aims his gun at Ben, Laura distracts him by slamming her knee into his groin. She grabs Martin's gun and holds him at gunpoint. As Laura calls the police, Martin expects her to tell the police to protect her from him, as she had done in the past, but Laura shocks Martin by informing the police she has killed an intruder and then shoots Martin three times in the chest. A wounded Martin seizes Laura by the hair and grabs the gun, aiming it at her in a desperate attempt to kill her, but the gun clicks empty. Martin then dies from his wounds, while Laura and Ben embrace and wait for the police.

• Julia Roberts as Laura Williams Burney / Sara Waters
• Patrick Bergin as Martin Burney
• Kevin Anderson as Ben Woodward
• Elizabeth Lawrence as Chloe Williams
• Kyle Secor as John Fleishman
• Claudette Nevins as Dr. Rissner
• Tony Abatemarco as Locke
• Marita Geraghty as Julie
• Harley Venton as Garber
• Sandi Shackelford as Edna
• Bonnie Johnson as Iris Neppert

Filming began in Wilmington on April 2, 1990, and continued through May 12.^[4]

As of July 2024^[update], the film held a 24% "Rotten" rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews with an average rating of 4.6/10. The site's consensus states: "A game Julia Roberts gives it her all, but Sleeping with the Enemy is one stalker thriller that's unlikely to inspire many obsessions of its own."^[5] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.^[7]

Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of a possible 4 upon its release, saying while the film had good performances and the opening scenes "briefly seemed to have greatness in its grasp", Sleeping with the Enemy quickly fell into cliches and plot holes and became "a slasher movie in disguise, an up-market version of the old exploitation formula where the victim can run, but she can't hide."^[8] Another mostly negative review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who wrote that the film "has the bare bones of a tantalizing thriller" and praised Robert's performance ("you can practically feel her pulse"), but also felt Bergin's role was too "mechanical" to be believed, and placing blame on the "deadwood" script.^[9]

The film's opening ended Home Alone's twelve week run atop the box office.^[10] By the end of its run, the film had grossed $101,599,005 in the domestic box office; with an international total of $73,400,000, the film's worldwide gross was $174,999,005; based on a $19 million budget, the film was a box office success.^[11] The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 12, 1991, and opened on #2, behind Highlander II: The Quickening.^[12] The next week, the film remained in the same position.^[13]

The original music for the film was composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. Columbia Records released an album concurrently with the film containing just over 38 minutes of score plus the Van Morrison song "Brown Eyed Girl". In 2011, La-La Land Records issued a limited edition album of 3500 copies expanding Goldsmith's score (but omitting the song).

The film reached #1 in the rental charts in September 1991,^[14] and ended up as the ninth most rented movie that year in the United States.^[15] It was released on LaserDisc in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and Japan by Fox Video in 1991.^[16] It also received various releases on VHS, was released on DVD on 2 September 2003, and subsequently entered the market of Blu-ray in June 2011. As of August 2023, it still hasn't been released on 4K.^[17][18]

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).

In February 2019, it was reported that a remake of Sleeping with the Enemy was in development at Searchlight Pictures, with Nia DaCosta helming the project.^[19]

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Sleeping with the Enemy.

• Sleeping with the Enemy at IMDb
• Sleeping with the Enemy at AllMovie
• Sleeping with the Enemy at Box Office Mojo
• Sleeping with the Enemy at Rotten Tomatoes