Reviewing Cult Classics: Drop Dead Fred
By: Tracee Carter
"This is easily one of the worst films I've ever seen," said Gene Siskel. What did he know anyway? He was only one half of a powerhouse movie critiquing duo that had been actively giving expert reviews for 30 years. Is it possible that he and everyone else overlooked the importance of mental health and protecting your peace, along with the quiet reveal about Fred’s true identity when so harshly rating the cult classic, "Drop Dead Fred?"
Fred is Elizabeth Cronin’s imaginary friend from the past who reappears after she suffers through a series of life shattering events. His chaotic nature makes him appear to be a nuisance who everyone tends to wish would just drop dead. His obnoxious antics consistently embarrass Elizabeth until she remembers his importance to her childhood. Through Fred’s special breed of support and encouragement, Elizabeth musters up enough courage to dump her cheating husband, Charles, and part ways with her manipulative and controlling mother. Considering the deep dive this movie journeys, a basic plot explanation simply isn’t giving what it needs to give, so let’s try another route.
Mental health is an overarching topic in the film, and it is easy to spot the tells if you pay close attention. Having a manipulative and controlling mother seems to be the free gift with birth; everyone has one. Some parents may blame concern for their meddling and this could very well be true, but imagine having a parent tell your five-year-old self how you never do anything right.
The verbal abuse Elizabeth suffers at the hands of her mother has likely stunted her growth into adulthood, which can be seen in the stark contrast between her friend Janie's appearance and Elizabeth’s seventies Holly Hobby style; ankle length frumpy floral dress with white socks and shiny black doll shoes. Is it possible she is suffering a form of arrested psychological development, meaning she remains stuck at the time of her childhood trauma? This would explain why she appears to be immature during the earlier years of her marriage, the person who has been gaslighting Elizabeth throughout his entire affair with Annabella.
Then there’s Fred.
After her husband’s infidelity left her all alone, Elizabeth moves back to her mother’s home, where she is treated as a child by being banned from the living room carpet that has been roped off. It is at this point when Fred makes his return to discover a grown up Lizzy Cronin. The first “game” he pulls her into is using dog waste to destroy the very area she was told to stay away from. The next morning, she wakes to find her mother vigorously scrubbing the excrement from the carpet. For an imaginary friend, he sure did get the assignment. No one puts Lizzy in the corner.
Lizzy Cronin’s struggles first take shape at age five, when she is forced to create Fred as a defense mechanism against her mother’s abuse.
During one of many flashbacks, we get a first look at young Lizzy’s relationship with her imaginary friend. Fred can be seen waking her up in the middle of the night to play robbers and slips a handmade striped sweater over her smock nightingale nightgown. Their adventure includes stealing silverware and smashing in a window, to which Fred exclaims how much he loves the breaking noises. When things go south, she recalls to Fred how her mother told her she never does anything right. This kind of self-doubt in a child can be damaging. Luckily, Fred is right there to remind Lizzy of just how great she is and encourages her to unapologetically walk in her truth.
Elizabeth's next memory of Fred takes her back to the most painful time in her life as a child. She was locked in her bedroom by her mother and placed under the care of a terrifying nurse after being taken to a child psychiatrist to discuss the dangers of Fred’s presence.
Dressed in a replica of the nightgown from her childhood, she remembers a time when her mother’s verbal abuse was so upsetting that Fred made an appearance and suggested they make a mud pie to cheer her up. Unfortunately, the dish was served using fine china and left a mess everywhere. Her imaginary friend then flees into Lizzy’s jack-in-the-box for safety. When her mother enters the room, she finds the mess and angrily pries the toy from her daughter's grip, leaving her in tears and begging for her friend. She then proceeds to tape the box shut and forbids Lizzy to open it, threatening that she would crush him to death.
As an adult, Elizabeth discusses with Fred how much she suffered from his disappearance, telling him that after he left, "all of the life, spirit, and Fred went out of me." He then encourages her to flee from her mother’s watchful eye to attend a party her husband hosting. Elizabeth breaks the glass window in her bedroom, exclaiming how much she loves the breaking noises, and she and her imaginary friend escape. Although she is now an adult, and Fred has spent half of the movie hilariously condemning her for growing up, the two seem to have more in common than they know.
Once Elizabeth has won back Charles, the courage she gained takes a back seat to his manipulative ways when he convinces her to take the pills the psychiatrist prescribed to help phase Fred out. While Fred tries to warn her about the ill motives of her husband, she doesn't listen and begins to take the pills. For every pill she took Fred suffered through painful stomach cramps that slowly crippled him. When the romantic dinner Elizabeth prepared for Charles is revealed to be a mud pie, she threatens to take the last pill that will end his life. After overhearing Charles' plans to continue his affair, Elizabeth ends up developing a similar pain to what Fred us suffering from on the floor next to her. When Fred tells her to leave her husband, she confesses she is afraid of being alone.
Coming to terms with the reality of her feelings sends Elizabeth on a journey of freedom that starts with her becoming one with Fred as he walks her through her most repressed fears. When she arrives at an eerie replica of her mother’s home, she is immediately faced with a sinister version of her husband, whose advances she must reject in order to pass the first test. In the last task she finds her mother’s terrifying profile standing guard at her bedroom door refusing to let her in. With Fred’s encouragement, Elizabeth vanquishes her presence by shouting that she is no longer afraid of her.
Upon entering the room, she finds her five-year old self taped to the bed, frees her younger self, and discovers she must return home without Fred. Elizabeth no longer needed his physical form because she realized that Fred had been a part of her all along.
She was Fred.
When Elizabeth returns, in true Fred fashion, she breaks up with Charles by dumping the dinner she had been preparing all over his head and wipes a booger on his cheek. When she returns to her mother’s home to make a final attempt at discussing her childhood trauma, she is met with the same verbal abuse that was used to tear her down as a child. She immediately made the decision to walk away from the very person who had been responsible for years of fear and anguish. Once her mother realized her daughter was leaving her life forever, she confessed her own fear of loneliness in an attempt to get her to stay, to which Elizabeth advised her to get a “Fred.”
If Elizabeth was her own imaginary friend all along how do we explain the little girl at the end who seems to have her own Fred? Simple. Fred is merely a physical manifestation brought on by the need to protect oneself from something. Whether it's a motherless child who is consistently being left with nannies or a woman who finds herself taking her loneliness out on her own daughter. Everyone is capable of creating their own Fred; it's called an alter ego.
Looking back at the movie, “Drop Dead Fred,” proves how beautifully complex the film truly is. Much like life, there are connections just waiting to be made in order to fully understand who we are and bring us to a place of healing. What may have been disregarded or harshly rated once before can now fully shine in the realization that our trauma and mental health is deserving of respect and a safe space to work through it with grace.
As for Elizabeth and Fred, perhaps the best part of their relationship was that he never gave up on her and gave her the strength she needed to call the "mega beast" out on her manipulative pile of shit.