The American writers of this comedy had to come to British independents for the finance, which ought to tell you something.
Pretty Phoebe Cates is the disaster prone heroine who loses her handbag, her job and her bounder of a husband all on the same day. Frankly, she's such a wimp in droopy frocks and little girl ankle socks, one cannot entirely scorn hubby for straying in the direction of Bridget Fonda, whose clingy little black dress, we are informed, is unmarred by v.p.l. because she doesnt wear any.
Unhappily back home with a mommy as warm as Joan Crawford (Mason), Cates Elizabeth renews the acquaintance of her childhood imaginary friend Drop Dead Fred. With a friend like Mayalls noisy Fred, she doesnt need enemies since his specialties are puerile pranks and property destruction. If an imaginary friend is basically only good for throwing food in restaurants and messing up mummys house, what use is he to a grown-up?
Although Mayall tries hard on manic overdrive to invest the proceedings with some verve, The only excellent idea threatening to emerge here is a scene in a child psychiatrists waiting room where a crowd of juvenile patients are all accompanied by their variously strange imaginary friends, who compare news while anxious parents hover around oblivious.
That any of it, however, should suddenly, melodramatically lead to Elizabeth learning to assert herself is, to say the least, unpersuasive.
