Sleeping with the Enemy

This is in the 'never trust appearances' mould popularised by Fatal Attraction and Pacific Heights. Julia Roberts is Laura, whose particularly smooth but psychotic hubby (Bergin) demands gourmet dinners and sex on tap, and is prone to duffing her up if she fails to hang towels in the prescribed manner. Roberts is so driven by such mistreatment that she fakes her own death, reappearing as a free-at-last nobody, and is courted by a yukkily wholesome drama teacher (Anderson) in the film's risible middle section. Cue return of Bergin's unreconstituted psycho, madder and nastier than ever, for the usual climactic punch-out and final, audience-cheering pay-off. A tacky footnote to the battered wife issue.