Drop Dead Fred is a 1991 comedy film directed by Ate de Jong, starring Phoebe Cates and Rik Mayall.
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Cronin (Cates) has had a horrible day, her entire life falling apart within a single lunch hour. First, while trying to reconcile with her husband over his affair, he dumps her. Her purse and then car are stolen as she tries to figure out what to do about her life, and finally she loses her job. Lizzie's controlling mother Polly (Marsha Mason) arrives on the scene and Shanghais Lizzie into staying with her. Upon returning to her childhood home and exploring her old room, Lizzie discovers an old, taped up jack-in-the-box. When she opens it, Lizzie ends up releasing her childhood imaginary friend Drop Dead Fred (Mayall), whom her mother had trapped inside the toy many years ago.
Having been imprisoned in the toy for twenty-one years, Fred is surprised to find Lizzie grown up, depressed, and piled under her unhappy life. As her imaginary friend, he tries to help her put things back together and cheer her up like he did when she was little. Fred's sense of humour and disregard for consequences cause some more problems for Elizabeth, but he ultimately helps her rediscover her inner child and the strength to live her own life free from her domineering, emotionally abusive mother.
This movie contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Lizzie's mother definitely goes into this area thanks to emotionally abusing Lizzie.
- Affectionate Nickname: Fred's nickname for Lizzie is "Snotface".
- Alpha Bitch: Annabella is an adult example. Just as she starts to bond with Lizzie, it's revealed she's been willingly having an affair with her husband.
- Ambiguously Bi: For the majority of the film, Lizzie is in love with Charles, her husband (although the latter is a total Jerkass). She also shares a kiss with Fred before saying goodbye to him towards the end of the film. However, Drop Dead Fred, her Imaginary Friend who clearly represents aspect of herself, likes looking up women’s skirts. The case for this seems to be that Lizzie is sexually repressed and that her mother and husband keep her controlled in a childlike state.
- And I Must Scream: Fred was sealed in the Jack-in-the-Box throughout Elizabeth's childhood before being released.
- And This Is for...: Janie accidentally outs her affair with Murray when trying to attack Fred:"That's for the boat! And that's for ruining the one schtoop I get a month when Murray's wife is out of town!"
(freezes, notices everyone around her watching) - Animated Credits Opening: The animated opening is done in the style of children's drawings.
- The Baby Trap: Polly tried to keep her husband by becoming pregnant with Lizzie. When this still didn't work and he left, she ended up putting the blame on her daughter.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Lizzie finds out that Charles is still cheating on her, Fred tells her to leave him. Lizzie says she can't because...she's scared to be alone. This is what prompts Fred to take her on a spiritual journey to finally conquer her fears.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Having an imaginary friend in adulthood leads Lizzie to committing a lot of damaging behaviours, including sinking her best friend's houseboat and attacking a violinist.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lizzie finally finds happiness in her life, but she can no longer see Fred. However, Fred hasn't gone far as he is now the imaginary friend of Mickey's (Lizzie's childhood friend) daughter and Lizzie realizes this when she notices the little pinkie sign she used to do with Fred.
- Bookends: The film starts with Lizzie losing her husband, her purse, her car, and her job within one hour, all because her husband cheated on her. At the end, Charles (the aforementioned husband) loses his wife, his girlfriend and his car in one minute, all because he was still cheating on Lizzie.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Janie. She's apparently a professional woman with a high-paying job, but she is also a complete flake who is very much into New Age type thinking and is uncommonly accepting of the very strange. When Lizzie tells her about Fred she simply accepts it, and when Fred sinks her houseboat she gets mad at Fred (not Lizzie) and tries to beat him up.
- Butt-Monkey: It's fair to say Lizzie doesn't have the best of luck throughout the film, especially in the beginning when she loses her husband, car and money all in one hour and the judge unsympathetically fires her. And after Fred comes out of the box, she has to deal with all his antics.
- Character Title: Drop Dead Fred is Lizzie's imaginary friend, and arguably the deuteragonist of the film.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander:
- Mickey. While he's a well-meaning guy, who genuinely cares about Lizzie, he is also charmed by her strange behaviour, and behaves inappropriately at a restaurant.
- Janie. She shows no concern about her best friend having an Imaginary Friend in adulthood, is only slightly irritated about loosing every possession she owns, and while beating up Fred, outs her affair with her boss.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Polly. Throughout the movie she treats Lizzie very coldly. However, she finally opens up to her daughter and asks her not to leave her alone.
- Disappeared Dad: Lizzie was only conceived because Polly believed that having a child might save her failing marriage to her husband Nigel. However, they couldn't agree on how to raise her; when Polly finally gets sick of Lizzie's antics with Fred and decides to imprison him in a jack-in-the-box, Nigel insists she's making a mistake but she dismisses his opinion as irrelevant. This proves to be the last straw for their marriage, and Polly's treatment of Lizzie becomes even more strict and manipulative without Nigel to rein her in.
- Fanservice Extra: A male example. A really hot waiter wearing only a toga accidentally gets stripped by Fred at one point.
- From Bad to Worse: Lizzie earns her
Woobie status less than 10 minutes into the film, in which her husband doesn't want to reconcile, her purse is stolen from her car, and then a passerby uses the broken window to gain entry and steal her car—all on her lunch hour. Then when she shows up to the courtroom an hour late, she's made to approach the bench by the judge and unceremoniously fired. - From the Mouths of Babes: Even as a child, Lizzie apparently learned some interesting curse words.Young Lizzie: Did they live happily ever after?Polly: Of course, Elizabeth.Young Lizzie: How do you know?Polly: Because, she was a good little girl, if she would have been naughty, the Prince would have run away.Young Lizzie: What a pile of shit.
- Gilligan Cut: Lizzie's mom tells her that she's coming home with her, and Lizzie attempts to assert that she's staying in her own apartment — only for the scene to cut to her being driven home by her mother.
- Imaginary Friend: Fred is Lizzie's imaginary friend, although some of his behavior makes him look more like an Imaginary Enemy in some sequences.
- In-Series Nickname: Fred has a few nicknames for Polly. His most common is The Megabitch/Megabeast. And for Lizzie, more affectionately, Snotface.
- Jerkass:
- Drop Dead Fred breaks stuff, smears dog crap on the carpet, mocks Lizzie about her husband leaving her, causes havoc at a restaurant, makes Lizzie look completely batshit (if you don't already think that about her), and destroys Janie's home and everything she owns for no apparent reason other than his amusement.
- Charles — Lizzie's husband — has the whole extramarital affair, and then acting like Lizzie needs to "just let him live his life." And if what Annabella said is any indication, he wasn't particularly interested in Lizzie until after her makeover, which she didn't even want in the first place. Oh, and he married her because he can control her.
- The judge fires Lizzie because she was late, even though it was only because she had her car stolen and couldn't possibly make it to work in time. note
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although Drop Dead Fred is a crude, annoying, unhelpful and mischievous troublemaker who causes a great deal of problems and stress for Lizzie, he does genuinely care for her and her happiness. At the end of the film, he sees that Lizzie is happy with her life and that she doesn't need him anymore. The both of them kiss before saying goodbye.
- Jump Scare: Fred freaks Lizzie out by re-appearing right in front of her yelling "BOO!"Fred: Ha ha ha, shit yourself?
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Annabella finally decides she can no longer keep seeing Charles on the side, she dumps him. Straight after, Lizzie, having overheard him talking to Annabella, dumps a bowl of salad and leaves him for good.
- Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: Nigel was kind to Lizzie and supported her having an imaginary friend. Polly, however, was emotionally abusive.
- Maybe Ever After: The last scene implies Lizzie will end up together with Mickey, her childhood playmate and a man much kinder than Charles.
- My Beloved Smother: Polly micromanages absolutely every aspect of her daughter Lizzie's life, effectively keeping her in a childlike state. It's telling that when Elizabeth finally has the courage to leave Charles once and for all, his first instinct is to call Polly in the hope that she can manipulate Elizabeth into returning to him.
- Never Grew Up: It's implied that a person might not actually grow out of needing their imaginary friend. They can take the green pills, that will inevitably kill their friend or in Lizzie's case figure out and defeat what it is that is making them unhappy.
- Never My Fault: Polly blames Lizzie for Nigel leaving her when really it was because he couldn't stand the emotional abuse she heaped on poor Lizzie.Polly: I guess I made a mistake anyone could make, I had a child to save a marriage.
Lizzie: How could you say that?
Polly: Well, you only made things worse! He left because of you!
Lizzie: What a pile of shit. - Not Afraid of You Anymore: During the climax, Lizzie finally yells this at a representation of her mother.
- No Sympathy: The judge who was Lizzie's boss fires her even after hearing that she lost her money, car, and husband all in one hour. note
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Fred turns out to be less imaginary than Lizzie first thought.
- Official Kiss: Although it was short, Lizzie and Fred share a kiss before they both say goodbye.
- Poltergeist: Fred can interact with people and things, even give the illusion that he can appear as another person (the violinist in the mall).
- Redhead in Green: Fred has an outfit for every occasion, but definitely doesn't believe in branching out, chromatically.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Lizzie tries to bring up her imaginary friend, Polly says no — and specifically names Drop Dead Fred when Lizzie didn't.
- Theme Naming: One of the other imaginary friends is credited as "Go To Hell Herman".
- Toilet Humour: In one scene, Fred smears dog poop on Polly's carpet.
- Too Dumb to Live: Janie — or at least too dumb for her house to live. If someone comes to you talking about an "imaginary friend" that they blame for the destruction of your home, the correct reaction is not an irritated sigh. The correct reaction is to have them committed and fast, because they are dangerous. Considering the immediate follow-up to said sigh was to believe in said imaginary friend and then very publicly try to physically assault him - in the middle of a meeting at her own workplace - her initial reaction could have been the beginning of a slow mental breakdown.
- Unwanted Assistance: Lizzie in understandably displeased by Fred's attempts to make her lighten up. It isn't until the climax that she realizes why she needed him all along.
- Visible to Believers: Fred is an Imaginary Friend who was sealed in a Jack-In-The-Box for many years, until his creator accidentally releases him. Presumably if he hadn't been sealed up he'd have been out in the world even if he had no longer been believed in.
