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Body of Evidence is a 1993 erotic thriller film directed by Uli Edel, written by Brad Mirman and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. The film stars Madonna and Willem Dafoe, and features Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Julianne Moore and Jürgen Prochnow in supporting roles.
Widely considered to be a vanity project for Madonna and derided for its plot inconsistencies and incongruous dialogue, it marked her fourth film performance to be universally panned by critics, following Shanghai Surprise (1986), Who’s That Girl (1987) and Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989).
In France and Japan, the film was released under the name Body. In Japan, Madonna’s other 1993 film Dangerous Game was released there as Body II even though the films have nothing in common nor are related to each other in narrative.
Plot
Wealthy Portland resident Andrew Marsh dies from complications stemming from an erotic incident involving bondage and homemade pornography. The main suspect is his lover Rebecca Carlson, who proclaims her innocence to lawyer Frank Dulaney. Frank agrees to represent her, believing Rebecca to be innocent.
District Attorney Robert Garrett seeks to prove that Rebecca deliberately induced Marsh’s fatal heart attack with vigorous sexual activity to receive the $8 million he left her in his will. Rebecca claims to be unaware that she is a beneficiary. As the trial begins, Rebecca and Frank enter a sadomasochistic relationship behind the back of Frank’s unsuspecting wife, Sharon.
Frank conspicuously lusts after Rebecca, and she leads him on, alternately enticing and then rebuffing him. During their first sexual encounter, Rebecca subjugates Frank by securing his elbows together behind his back using his own belt. While he is restrained, she asserts her dominance by pouring hot wax on his naked body before she will allow him sexual satisfaction.
Marsh’s doctor, Alan Paley, provides testimony in court that implicates Rebecca in the crime, however, Frank is able to play an answer machine message from Paley that ostensibly destroys Paley’s credibility as a witness, as Paley was trying to blackmail Rebecca into a sexual relationship with him. Rebecca, pleased with Frank’s performance in court, reaches her hand into his underwear in a crowded elevator, amused by Frank’s frantic attempts to appear impassive. Despite Frank’s fear of the implications of being observed, he eagerly accedes to Rebecca’s insistence that they then engage in public sex in the parking garage of the courthouse.
An ex-lover of Rebecca’s, Jeffrey Roston, testifies that he also had a heart condition and changed his will to favour Rebecca, and that she was sexually domineering and compelled him to engage in sexual activity with no regard to his health. Roston describes an incident that is nearly identical to Frank’s own experience of being humiliated by Rebecca, visibly affecting Frank’s composure in court. Frank angrily drags Rebecca to a side room, telling her their affair is over. Rebecca responds in kind.
Sharon confronts Frank about the affair, claiming to have deduced it from a phone call from Rebecca, as well as the intimate burn marks on Frank’s body from Rebecca’s earlier ‘game’. Frank goes to Rebecca’s home and accuses her of deliberately telling his wife about the relationship. Rebecca taunts Frank with what she might have revealed, and he shoves her to the floor. Rebecca taunts Frank again with how far she has been able to coerce him, opening her robe and masturbating in front of him, knowing that despite his fury Frank will still be unable to resist her. However, when Rebecca pulls out handcuffs and manoeuvres Frank into being restrained so that she can impose her will once more, Frank realizes what she is doing and wrestles them from her, forcibly cuffing Rebecca’s wrists to a bedpost so that she is at his mercy instead, turning the tables on her for the first time.
Footage from Marsh’s home video reveals that he had an affair with his secretary, Joanne Braslow, who is a key witness against Rebecca. He also had previously left Joanne more money in his will, changing it only after beginning his relationship with Rebecca. Joanne says that she was hurt but she loved him and would never hurt him. However, there is circumstantial evidence that implicates Joanne in Marsh unknowingly ingesting a fatal dose of cocaine.
Rebecca suggests to Frank that Joanne is trying to frame her, and that she must testify in her own defence. Frank responds that he himself now doubts Rebecca’s innocence, and that her narcissism will damage her own defence, however, he eventually relents.
Rebecca takes the stand and her surprising testimony that Roston had an affair with another man convinces the jury, which acquits her. Before leaving court, she mockingly thanks Frank, and whispers to him that she is indeed guilty of the crime of which she has just been found innocent.
Frank still feels compelled to go to Rebecca’s home, where he overhears an incriminating conversation between her and Alan Paley. He confronts the co-conspirators, realizing that Paley is also in thrall to Rebecca, and had deliberately perjured himself to make her appear innocent. Rebecca is amused by Frank’s discovery of her manipulating him, but Paley is shocked to learn that she was in a sexual relationship with Frank as well. Rebecca ridicules both men, bluntly acknowledging that she used her sexual prowess to control both of them, as well as Marsh, and that this allowed her to get away with murder. Rebecca’s open contempt for Paley now that her scheme has come to fruition, and her taunting him about the peril he has placed himself in because of her machinations, causes him to become enraged.
After a struggle with Rebecca and Frank, Paley shoots Rebecca with a gun that she retrieved in an attempt to defend herself. She plunges from a window to her death. Paley is arrested for murder.
Before leaving the scene with his wife to repair their relationship, Frank tells Garret he should have won the case, with Garrett replying: “I did”.
Cast
Production
Body of Evidence was filmed in Portland, Oregon, with the Pittock Mansion serving as a primary location. The cemetery scene featured in the beginning of the film was shot on location at Lone Fir Cemetery.
Julianne Moore said her nude scene in this movie was “just awful”: “I was too young to know better. It was the first time I’d been asked to get naked and it turned out to be completely extraneous and gratuitous.”
Release
Box office
Body of Evidence performed poorly at the box office. In its second week it experienced a 60% drop. It grossed $13 million in the United States and Canada and $25 million internationally for a worldwide total of $38 million.
Censorship
The film originally received the rare NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. The first theatrical release was censored for the purpose of obtaining an R rating, reducing the film’s running time from 101 to 99 minutes. The video premiere, however, restored the deleted material.
Critical response
Body of Evidence has an 8% rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 38 reviews, with a rating average of 3.10/10. The critical consensus reads, “Body of Evidence’s sex scenes may be kinky, but the ludicrous concept is further undone by the ridiculous dialogue.” Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 29 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable reviews”. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of “C” on scale of A+ to F. The film appeared on the 2005 list of Roger Ebert’s most hated films. The screenplay and performances were especially disparaged. His colleague Gene Siskel called Body of Evidence a “stupid and empty thriller” that is worse than her softcore coffee table book Sex. Julianne Moore later regretted acting in the film and went on to call it “a big mistake”.
Accolades
References
Sources
Bergen, Teresa; Davis, Heide (2021). Historic Cemeteries of Portland, Oregon. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-467-14861-0.
External links
Body of Evidence at IMDb
Body of Evidence at Box Office Mojo
Body of Evidence at Rotten Tomatoes
