Synopsis
A young woman fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her nightmarish marriage, but discovers it is impossible to elude her controlling husband.
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Cast
- Julia RobertsLaura Burney / Sara Walters
- Patrick BerginMartin Burney
- Kevin AndersonBen Woodward
- Elizabeth LawrenceChloe Williams
- Kyle SecorJohn Fleishman
- Tony AbatemarcoLocke
- Claudette NevinsDr. Rissner
- Marita GeraghtyJulie
- Nancy FishWoman on Bus
- Harley VentonGarber
Recommendations
- 80
Variety
In Sleeping with the Enemy, a chilling look at marital abuse gives way to a streamlined thriller [from the novel by Nancy Price] delivering mucho sympathy for imperiled heroine Julia Roberts and screams aplenty as she's stalked by her maniacal husband. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
Sleeping With The Enemy teeters constantly on the verge of silliness but director Joseph Ruben keeps the cornball melodrama scaled down to a pleasant lull. - 58
Entertainment Weekly
As an actress, Roberts has more than a great smile. She’s alive on screen — you can practically feel her pulse. But someone should have realized that audiences would be on her side even if every single moment of a movie weren’t calculated to put them there. - 50
The New York Times
Joseph Ruben, whose other films include The Stepfather and True Believer, has directed Sleeping With the Enemy with full appreciation of his leading lady's disarming beauty but less successful attention to the people and places that surround her. - 50
Time Out
This is in the 'never trust appearances' mould popularised by Fatal Attraction and Pacific Heights. - 50
Washington Post
Ruben, at least, is adept with suspense tactics. He keeps Bergin lurking off screen for an agonizingly long time and he knows his suspenseful way around a bathtub. There's also some respectably scary business to do with neatly arranged bathroom towels and food cans in the pantry. But Ruben is merely modulating mediocre material. - 50
Chicago Reader
The script itself—credited to Ronald Bass, and adapted from Nancy Price's novel—is a tissue of so many stupid and implausible contrivances that the only possible way of enjoying it is by taking your brain out to lunch. - 50
Washington Post
Ultimately Sleeping With the Enemy wants to be about one woman's rebirth, but Roberts neither grows nor glows in this empty movie.
