After four years of marriage to wealthy Martin Burney (Patrick Bergin), Laura (Julia Roberts) can no longer take his abuse and fakes her own death during a sailing accident. Renaming herself Sarah Waters, she flees from their Cape Cod home to Cedar Falls, Iowa where she begins a relationship with neighbor Ben Woodward (Kevin Anderson), the local college's drama professor. Not to be deprived of his battering ram, Martin hunts her down.
Sleeping with the Enemy is also a 1987 novel by Nancy Price.
Laura and Martin lived in Boston, and their vacation home on the beach was located in Cape Cod. Footage was shot at the Shell Island Resort Hotel in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. However, the beach home in the movie was actually a 3,000-foot temporary structure on Shell Islanta, a man-made extension on the north end of Wrightsville Beach. The house overlooked Mason Inlet and nearby Figure Eight Island. After wrapping, 20th Century Fox demolished the house and restored the dunes to their original condition, planting sea oats and beach grass" (from A Film Junkies' Guide to Wrightsville Beach). In the novel, the vacation house is actually a ratty beach cottage, complete with mildew-covered chair cushions.
To create a dark spot along the beach so that she knew where to swim in order to get home quickly and make her getaway while Martin was still out looking for her. We can gather this when she says, "That was the night that I died, and someone else was saved. Someone who was afraid of water, but learned to swim. Someone who knew that the darkness with the broken lights would show the way."
Some viewers have suggested that Dr Fleishman (Kyle Secor) was in cahoots with Laura, that he arranged to take her and Martin sailing, and that he lured Martin away from Laura long enough for her to slip over the side of sailboat during the storm. Other viewers think it happened just the way the movie presented it-that the doctor only saw Laura and their vacation house from the beach, never met Laura, and his inviting Laura and Martin on his sailboat was simply a coincidence. In the novel, Sara does have a brief encounter with him while she is walking on the beach. They make small talk only, then Sara heads inside to tell Martin that they have a new neighbor. Martin goes outside to greet his new neighbor and comes back with the news that they'll be going sailing that evening. Since Sara met the doctor the same day that he invited them to go sailing with him, it's unlikely that the author of the story meant to suggest that the doctor was part of the plan. It would appear that Fleishman only provided the opportunity for Laura/Sara to put her escape plan in action.
If that is the case, the why is it that Laura broke the lights outside her house on the precise morning of the night they were due to go sailing?
If that is the case, the why is it that Laura broke the lights outside her house on the precise morning of the night they were due to go sailing?
Sometime after the funeral, Martin got a call at his office in Boston from someone offering condolences. She mentions that Laura took swimming lessons with her at the YWCA. At first, Martin thought that it must be a mistake because, as far as he knew, Laura did not know how to swim. Then he drives to the beach house, goes through all her personal records, and notices her wedding ring at the bottom of the toilet. That's when he knows for sure. It's different in the book. The people at the Y don't have her telephone number or even her real name. A woman from the Y sees a photo from her wedding and an article about her death in a newspaper, runs into Martin in a supermarket, recognizes him, and lets it slip that his wife had learned to swim.
He flew to the nursing home in Minneapolis where Laura's mother Chloe (Elizabeth Lawrence) had been living in order to pump them for information about where Chloe was buried and about any visitors she might have had, looking for any friends or relatives to whom Laura might have turned. In talking with the administrator. He learns that Chloe isn't dead at all and that Laura had merely moved her to another nursing home, so he hired a private investigator and paid him large amounts of money to locate Chloe, probably something easily done by searching Social Security databases. He learns that Chloe is living in a nursing home in Sioux City, Iowa, so he goes there to look for Laura.
A large ocean-side house like that most likely had multiple bathrooms. Because there were contents on and under the counter, it appears that the bathroom was Laura's personal bathroom, normally unused by Martin. When Martin drives to the beach house from his office in Boston and finds the ring, all the furniture is covered with sheets. He was clearly not living there at the time he finds the ring.
Presumably near Cedar Falls, Iowa. Ben is a drama professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. It was actually filmed in Abbeville, South Carolina.
No time frame is given in the movie. However, it could be surmised that a few months passed. Consider that the movie starts in a beach-front home on Cape Cod where Laura and Martin are vacationing. When Laura arrives In Sioux City, Iowa, it was still summer in the scenes where kids are cooling off in the fountain and lawns are being watered, and when she is seen sitting on her front porch in early evening, and many scenes indicate it is summer. Yet when Martin showed up at Chloe's previous nursing home in Minneapolis, he's wearing a trench coat and leaves were falling, so it was starting to get cooler. The parade in Sioux City has the look of a patriotic holiday, possibly Labor Day (early September). This would be summer to fall, meaning a month at least, possibly two.
... Laura and Martin were at the party at the beginning of the movie?: "Close to You", sung by Maxi Priest.
... Martin and Laura start to make love and Laura drops the strawberries, and when Martin was attacking Laura?: "Symphonie Fantastique", specifically Op. 14 Part V: Songe D'une Nuit de Sabbat, composed by Hector Berlioz. What's fascinating about the use of "Symphonie Fantastique" as Martin's theme is that it is about a man who is obsessed with a woman and prone to fits of jealousy and who dreams that he has killed her and sees his own execution. As these dreams start happening, the music gradually gets darker and more twisted.
... Ben was dancing on the lawn with the sprinkler?: "The Jet Song" from the musical score of West Side Story (1961).
... Laura and Ben were dancing in the theater dressing room?: (1) "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, and (2) "Runaround Sue" by Dion DiMucci and The Belmonts.
... Opening and closing music?: "Remember This", composed by Jerry Goldsmith.
... Martin and Laura start to make love and Laura drops the strawberries, and when Martin was attacking Laura?: "Symphonie Fantastique", specifically Op. 14 Part V: Songe D'une Nuit de Sabbat, composed by Hector Berlioz. What's fascinating about the use of "Symphonie Fantastique" as Martin's theme is that it is about a man who is obsessed with a woman and prone to fits of jealousy and who dreams that he has killed her and sees his own execution. As these dreams start happening, the music gradually gets darker and more twisted.
... Ben was dancing on the lawn with the sprinkler?: "The Jet Song" from the musical score of West Side Story (1961).
... Laura and Ben were dancing in the theater dressing room?: (1) "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, and (2) "Runaround Sue" by Dion DiMucci and The Belmonts.
... Opening and closing music?: "Remember This", composed by Jerry Goldsmith.
Some of the differences are minor, e.g., Laura (Julia Roberts) becomes Sara after she moves to Iowa in the movie, whereas the names are reversed in the novel. Ben (Kevin Anderson) in the movie is portrayed as a nice guy, whereas Ben in the novel shows some of the same behaviors that sent her running from Martin (Patrick Bergin) in the first place. In the movie, Laura rents a completely furnished home, has enough money for the first month's rent and security deposit and to paint, redecorate, fill the cupboards with name brand food, and buy a tape deck and African violets for her windows, all before she even has a job. In the novel, she lives on oatmeal and beans while pinching every penny. Probably the biggest difference between novel and movie is that the character in the book is incredibly cautious, while Laura Burney in the movie does what some people could consider "dumb" things, like tossing her wedding ring in the toilet (she takes it with her in the book), taking off the wig as soon as she gets to Iowa (she is constantly disguised in the book), discussing her bad relationship with Ben and revealing to her mother where she is living and who she is seeing (she is tight-lipped about everything in the book), going public with Ben at the carnival (she does attend a carnival with Ben in the book but it is the only time she did anything publicly with him), etc.
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- How long is Sleeping with the Enemy?1 hour and 39 minutes
- When was Sleeping with the Enemy released?February 8, 1991
- What is the IMDb rating of Sleeping with the Enemy?6.3 out of 10
- Who stars in Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who wrote Sleeping with the Enemy?Ron Bass and Nancy Price
- Who directed Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who was the composer for Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who was the producer of Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who was the executive producer of Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who was the cinematographer for Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who was the editor of Sleeping with the Enemy?
- Who are the characters in Sleeping with the Enemy?Fleishman, Dr. Rissner, Locke, Julie, Garber, Woman on Bus, Edna, Mrs. Nepper, Minister, Theater Student, and others
- What is the plot of Sleeping with the Enemy?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.
- What was the budget for Sleeping with the Enemy?$19 million
- How much did Sleeping with the Enemy earn at the worldwide box office?$175 million
- How much did Sleeping with the Enemy earn at the US box office?$102 million
- What is Sleeping with the Enemy rated?R
- What genre is Sleeping with the Enemy?Drama and Thriller
- How many awards has Sleeping with the Enemy won?2 awards
- How many awards has Sleeping with the Enemy been nominated for?6 nominations
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