''The Butcher's Wife'' is a 1991 American

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film, directed by Terry Hughes and starring Demi Moore and Jeff Daniels. The film concerns a

clairvoyant Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

woman (Moore) thinks that she's met her future husband, whom she has seen in her dreams, and who is a butcher in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. They marry and move to the city, where her powers tend to influence everyone she meets while working in the shop. Through her advice, she helps others and eventually finds the true man of her dreams in a psychiatrist (Daniels). ''The Butcher's Wife'' was a critical and commercial failure, grossing only $9 million at the box office. According to her 2019 memoir ''Inside Out'', Moore regretted starring in the film, saying she only did it to increase her fee after the success of '' Ghost''.

Plot

As a clairvoyant, Marina awaits signs from beyond that her true love, whoever he may be, is waiting for her, somewhere. When New York butcher Leo Lemke shows up on the tiny North Carolina island of Ocracoke, where Marina lives, she is convinced that he is the man predestined to be her husband. After the wedding, Marina moves into Leo's

blue-collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

neighborhood, where she successfully commiserates with such eccentrics as withdrawn teenager Eugene, frustrated singer Stella Keefover, unlucky-in-love actress Robyn Graves, over analytical psychiatrist Dr. Alex Tremor, and closeted lesbian dress shop clerk Grace. But what Marina fails to grasp about her powers is that she can see the future of strangers far more clearly than her own, and love is unpredictable no matter how many ways you have to look for it. The film makes use of several phenomena that can be described as occult portents that meeting a love match is imminent or occult tools to help strengthen, seal or bring about love, luck and happiness. These include the sudden "finding" of a ring that would serve as a wedding band, falling stars with twin tails, zig-zagged rainbows and found objects symbolizing a change in the finder's path that will cause it to cross with their beloved.

Cast

* Demi Moore as Marina Lemke * Jeff Daniels as Dr. Alex Tremor * George Dzundza as Leo Lemke * Mary Steenburgen as Stella Keefover *

Frances McDormand Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emm ...

as Grace * Margaret Colin as Robyn Graves *

Max Perlich Max Perlich (born March 26, 1968) is an American film and television actor. In 1990, Perlich won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the hit indie film '' Drugstore Cowboy'' and was nominated for the same ...

as Eugene * Miriam Margolyes as Gina *

Christopher Durang Christopher Ferdinand Durang (born January 2, 1949) is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s. ...

as Mr. Liddle * Luis Avalos as Luis * Helen Hanft as Molly * Elizabeth Lawrence as Grammy D'Arbo *

Diane Salinger Diane Louise Salinger (born January 25, 1951) is an American actress. She is best known for Apollonia in ''Carnivàle ''Carnivàle'' () is an American television series set in the United States Dust Bowl during the Great Depression of the 1 ...

as Trendoid

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 24%, based on 17 reviews, and an average rating of 4.5/10. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Janet Maslin of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote "Too much of the film is spent matching up lovers who must almost literally get their stars uncrossed in order to find happiness. But a lot of it is enjoyably buoyant, even when it's several shades too broad."

Awards and nominations

1991 Golden Raspberry Awards

One nomination: * Worst Actress (Demi Moore)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Butcher's Wife, The 1991 romantic comedy films 1991 films American fantasy comedy films Films set in North Carolina Films shot in New York (state) Films shot in North Carolina Lesbian-related films Paramount Pictures films American romantic comedy films Films directed by Terry Hughes (director) 1990s English-language films 1990s American films