Bedazzled (2000 film)
| Bedazzled | |
|---|---|
 Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley | |
| Directed by | Harold Ramis |
| Produced by | Trevor Albert Harold Ramis |
| Starring | Brendan Fraser Elizabeth Hurley Frances O'Connor |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
Release dates | October 19, 2000 (U.S. release) |
Running time | 93 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $48,000,000 (estimated) |
Bedazzled is a 2000 motion picture, and is a remake of the original Bedazzled (1967), originally written by Peter Cook. Its stars include Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser. It was directed by Harold Ramis.
Plot summary
Elliot Richards (played by Brendan Fraser) works a dead-end job in a call-center and has no real friends. He has a crush on his colleague, Alison Gardner (played by Frances O'Connor), but has not asked her out. After Elliot is ditched at a bar while trying to talk to Alison, Elliot wishes that Alison was his. The Devil (played by Elizabeth Hurley) hears this wish, and Elliot and the Devil enter into a contract. Elliot gets seven wishes, and in return the Devil will take possession of his soul.
As might be expected of a bargain with Satan, there is a catch to the deal. No matter what Elliot asks for himself, in each case the Devil arranges matters so that he is unhappy with the result:
- He wishes to be rich and powerful, with Alison as his wife. The Devil makes him a Colombian cocaine manufacturer whose wife despises him and is having an affair with her language tutor, and whose business partners are about to double-cross and murder him.
- He wishes to be emotionally sensitive; the Devil makes him so sensitive that he spends much of his time crying at how beautiful the world is, whilst Alison finds comfort with a less sensitive man.
- He wishes to be athletic, the Devil makes him a seven foot plus tall basketball star but gives him an extremely small penis which causes Alison to lose interest in him.
- He wishes to be intelligent, witty and well endowed, the Devil grants this but makes him gay.
- He wishes to be President, the Devil makes him Abraham Lincoln on the night of his assassination.
After each wish is renounced, Elliot returns for a meeting with the Devil in which she blames him for not being specific enough in his desires and prompts him to try again. These meetings take place in a variety of locations, with the Devil each time in a different role in which she carries out a variety of everyday evil acts - dismissing a class full of students from their lesson without any homework, swapping the medication on a hospital trolley for candy, forcing parking meters to expire and writing tickets for the cars.
Eventually Elliot becomes disenchanted with the deal and decides to abandon it. The Devil reacts negatively to this, stating that if he does not live out his final wish at once then by the terms of the contract his soul will be ceded to her at once. When Eliott objects that he has two wishes left, she points out that on their first meeting he asked for a big Mac and coke, which she ordered for him. This counts against his total, leaving one wish remaining.
When he dithers, she arranges to have him locked in a prison cell where he meets a mysterious stranger who tells him that he cannot possibly sell his soul as it belongs to God rather than him - although this is left ambiguous, the movie implies that the stranger may be an angel, or possibly even God himself.
Eliott returns to the Devil having become resigned to the futility of the bargain; when she pushes him to make a final wish he blurts out that he wishes that Alison could have a happy life. With this the Devil grudgingly admits that by the terms of his contract a selfless wish voids the entire deal, and sends him away. Before they part ways Eliott admits that despite her manipulation of him he has come to like the Devil and regards her as a friend, something she does not object to. She simply says that the classic battle of God versus the Devil is a sham, and in the end, Heaven and Hell can be found on Earth. It's up to the humans to choose. This implies that the Devil may simply just be another agent of God, sent to tempt humans, but otherwise just another servant of Him. This is further reinforced when she is seen playing a friendly game of chess with the man believed to be either God or an angel.
Eliott finally approaches Alison directly and asks her out, only to find that she is involved with somebody. He accepts this with good grace and continues with his life, quickly meeting a new girl, also played by Frances O'Connor.
Main cast
- Brendan Fraser as Elliot Richards / Jefe / Mary
- Elizabeth Hurley as The Devil
- Frances O'Connor as Alison Gardner / Nicole Delarusso
- Miriam Shor as Carol / Penthouse Hostess
- Orlando Jones as Daniel / Dan / Danny / Esteban / Beach Jock / Lamar Garrett / Dr. Ngegitigegitibaba
- Paul Adelstein as Bob / Roberto / Beach Jock / Bob
- Toby Huss as Jerry / Alejandro / Beach Jock / Jerry Turner / Lance
- Gabriel Casseus as Elliot's Cellmate
- Brian Doyle-Murray as Priest
- Jeff Doucette as Desk Sergeant
- Aaron Lustig as Synedyne Supervisor
- Rudolf Martin as Raoul
- Julian Firth as John Wilkes Booth
Quotations
- The Devil: I am the Devil! Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness! Well, the princess, anyway...
- The Devil: Do you have $3.47? I've left my purse in the Underworld.
- The Devil: It's like your appendix. You'll never even miss it.
Elliot: Oh, yeah? If it's so useless, how come you want it so much?
The Devil: Oh, aren't you the clever one? - The Devil: Seven utterly fabulous wishes for one piddling little soul?
- Elliot: Bh Oh, wait! I wish I were the most emotionally sensitive man in the world.
The Devil: Damn. I was hoping you wouldn't catch that. I could've had a lot of fun with that one. - Elliot: I'm telling you, the Devil gypped me for a hamburger!
- The Devil: There's no point fighting about this. You have to learn to accept the inevitable. We are all doomed anyway.
- Man in jail: Devil don't try to confuse you, it's just a game.
Elliot: Who are you?
Man in jail: Just a friend, brother. Just a really good friend.
Trivia
- The Devil claims that, on November 16, she will have held her job for six thousand years. This is a reference to Archbishop James Ussher, who used a literal interpretation of the Bible to calculate that the world was created on Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C.
- Producer Trevor Albert has claimed that Elizabeth actually owned the schoolgirl outfit she wore in the movie.
- In a deleted scene, Eliott wished to be a rock star, and was shown as a drug addict on the edge of self destruction.
- During the beach scene in the "sensitive" wish, the Devil is shown walking two dogs named "Peter" and "Dudley" - a reference to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the stars of the original Bedazzled.
- During the bedroom scene in the "intellectual" wish, a reference is made to The Pajama Game, which was directed by Stanley Donen, the director of the original Bedazzled.
- The car Elizabeth Hurley/The Devil drives in the movie is a Lamborghini Diablo, an obvious reference to the Devil, as "diablo" is Spanish for "devil."
- When Elliot wishes to be a sports star, the basketball team he plays for is also called "The Diablos".
- When Elliot asks the Devil if all she thinks about is sex, she replies no. She also thinks about greed, gluttony, sloth, vanity, and envy (pride). These, along with lust (sex), are among the seven deadly sins.