Synopsis
An ex-newspaper woman who is now a suburban housewife can't resist getting involved in an investigation of the murder of a philandering dentist who had been having affairs with several of her neighbors.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Susan SarandonJudith Singer
- Raúl JuliáDavid Suarez
- Edward HerrmannBob Singer
- Judith IveyNancy Miller
- Mary Beth HurtPeg Tuccio
- Joe MantegnaBruce Fleckstein
- Anne DeSalvoPhyllis Fleckstein
- Josh MostelDicky Dunck
- Deborah RushBrenda Dunck
- Joan AllenMary Alice Mahoney
Recommendations
- 90
Los Angeles Times
A delicious adaptation by Susan Isaacs of her novel, directed with a light, knowing touch by Frank Perry. It’s a blithe, sparkling, sophisticated comedy-mystery laced with dark humor that couldn’t be more welcome in the current summer avalanche of teen movies. How gratifying to hear once again dialogue that crackles with wit and humor (and doesn’t even require subtitles!). - 80
Time Out
It's all very humorous and engaging, if only for proving that American whodunits don't have to have car chases and brutality; and it has a wicked eye for the vacuity of middle-class good life and what it may conceal. Lots of feelthy girl talk, too. - 80
The New York Times
Although Compromising Positions is supposed to be a comedy and a mystery, the film's comedy is of such a high order that the rather ordinary question of the identity of the murderer seems to be interruptive of Mr. Perry's and Miss Isaacs' otherwise nastily funny, suburban satire. Reduced to its essentials, Compromising Positions is ''Nancy Drew and the Case of the Dissembling Dentist.''... A very entertaining film. - 80
The New Yorker
Susan Sarandon does inspired double-takes - just letting her beautiful dark eyes pop. - 75
Miami Herald
Compromising Positions is not a big movie in any way, and it has its share of rough spots, particularly toward the end. But it's a late-summer concession to grown-up tastes after a season of intergalactic kids. And it's hard to hate a movie that contains this sentiment, again delivered deadpan: "God, I'd love to kill a dentist." [30 Aug 1985, p.D15] - 63
Chicago Tribune
There's a good movie lurking somewhere in Susan Isaacs' script of her comic murder mystery novel "Compromising Positions" but neither Isaacs nor director Frank Perry has found it. [30 Aug 1985, p.A] - 60
TV Guide Magazine
Based on screenwriter Susan Isaacs' first novel, the film is nearly undone by Frank Perry's lazy direction. Good performances from the entire cast, especially Sarandon, save the movie. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
If I were simply to describe the story of Compromising Positions, it might sound like lighthearted, slightly kinky fun. But the movie has such a bitter core, such a distaste for its characters, that I ended up feeling uncomfortable in its company. I think it's supposed to be a comedy, but I felt depressed by its world of rich, neurotic, bitchy suburbanities.