Julia Roberts was good in this pretty standard 90s thriller. The start of this film was great, until Patrick Burgin's acting became intolerable, and the obvious continuity errors reached double digits. Whilst trying to affect an American accent, Patrick Burgin starts shouting Laura in an Irish accent - so obvious I had to google him immediately to see where in the Uk/Ireland he was from. Pretty poor.. In his defence, the actor who played Ben was nearly as shocking! He's supposed to be the knight in shining armour, yet he just comes across as leechy and clingy, and throws her around like a rag doll when they're dancing, despite knowing about her past. Then at the final scene, he's absolutely useless! The errors are also so ridiculous it's confusing that this wasn't a comedy! Julia Roberts cuts her hair at her shoulders to run away to Iowa...but by the time she reaches Iowa her hair is back the way it was, and stays this way for the rest of the movie. Safe Haven is a rip off of this movie, but at least it's good. Just watch that instead

Sleeping With The Enemy is one of the best atmospheric thrillers of the early 90's. Anyone who checks it out thinking they'll get a serious, thought provoking look at domestic abuse should think again. It's more of a dark, impressionistic fairytale than anything else, with logic giving way to a nightmarish chase piece. Julia Roberts plays Laura, a naive young bride to Martin (Patrick Bergin), a wealthy advertisement executive who adores her and gives her everything she wants. Unfortunately part of that package involves him kicking the living crap out of her at the drop of a hat. The early scenes have a nerve wracking sense of awaiting disaster, and indeed when things get really bad, Laura escapes by the skin of her teeth, travels by night to a small town in a distant corner of the country, and attempts to start anew. Martin, big bad wolf that he is, pursues her in selfish psychopathic rage, leading to a tense, wicked showdown. This is a misunderstood film. It's not meant as a serious minded piece, but rather an allegory for the way humans prey on one another, relatable to the dark storybooks of our childhood, but manifested in a very adult, mature setting. It's set almost like a horror film, with an ominous score, moody, gaunt locations and an ambiance that sets it just outside reality. Roberts is equal parts resilient and vulnerable as a damsel in distress who ends up rescuing herself, which is as good a character arc as any. Bergin owns, with a towering portrayal of tyrannical, senseless evil. He stalks the film's gorgeous cinematography with a virile madness and relentless sadism that seems one dimensional, until you accept that he isn't meant to be a fleshed out human, but rather an archetype of the bad that human beings are capable of. Crackling thriller.

Sleeping with the Enemy is a mediocre movie with a promising storyline that simply didn't end up being as good as it could have been and a good cast.I really don't think this movie should have been considered a thriller because there are altogether about five minutes of scenes that are genuinely thrilling,which is another 85 minutes of little excitement.While I did think the love story between Julia Roberts and Kevin Anderson was nice to watch and the actors had good chemistry,I really wasn't expecting,nor was I happy to see,that a very large portion of this movie is a romance.While it isn't awful,Sleeping with the Enemy fails to succeed in any genre it is considered to be and I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anyone. A woman tries to escape an abusive husband by faking her own death and a starting a new life.Best Performance: Julia Roberts

Sleeping with the Enemy is a psychological thriller film starring Julia Roberts.Patrick Bergin,Kevin Anderson,Elizabeth Lawrence,Kyle Secor and Claudette Nevins co-star to play supporting roles. The film is based on Nancy Price's novel of the same title. Roberts plays a woman who escapes from her abusive, obsessive husband from Cape Cod to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she captures the attention of a kindly college drama teacher.Laura Burney, the wife of a rich investment counselor, Martin. Martin appreciates his wife as a trophy, but at home he abuses her for not keeping the house as clean as he would like it. The verbal abuse descends into physical violence so much so that Laura decides to disappear rather than live a life under Martin as a brutalized slave. Laura fakes her own death by drowning, and relocates to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she changes her name to Sara Waters. She starts a relationship with her friendly Iowa neighbor Ben Woodward but her happiness is short-lived. Martin has discovered that Laura has staged her drowning and is coming to Iowa to reclaim his possession.It's the sort of movie where all of the characters and plot moves are tailored to the thriller mechanics and have no existence apart from their crude functionality.The only good thing about it is Julia Roberts' presence and her performance as Laura.