Movies in which wife is a doormat and then learns to stand up for herself?

January 20, 2011 9:03 AM

Movies in which wife is a doormat and then learns to stand up for herself?
posted by markcmyers to Human Relations (46 answers total)

Raging Bull.
posted by dfriedman at 9:06 AM on January 20, 2011

Fried Green Tomatoes
Shirley Valentine
Educating Rita
posted by hot soup girl at 9:06 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fried Green Tomatoes.

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (I... think?)
posted by Madamina at 9:06 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sleeping with the Enemy.
posted by dfriedman at 9:06 AM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thelma & Louise.
posted by dfriedman at 9:07 AM on January 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

not wife, but pretty cool girl gets the bad guy Hard Candy
posted by Redhush at 9:07 AM on January 20, 2011

sleeping with the enemy is the classic, but my favorite is she-devil, starring roseanne and meryl streep.
posted by lia at 9:07 AM on January 20, 2011

Pleasantville- although the housewife who learns to have a life bit is a subplot of the larger story.
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:08 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Married to the Mob.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:13 AM on January 20, 2011

Gaslight, maybe. She's not quite a doormat but does eventually stand up for herself.
posted by 6550 at 9:13 AM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Capturing the Friedmans
posted by John Cohen at 9:15 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Enough
posted by staggernation at 9:15 AM on January 20, 2011

Enough (a J. Lo movie from a few years back)
Sleeping With the Enemy (Julia Roberts, circa early 90s)
posted by pecanpies at 9:17 AM on January 20, 2011

Waitress perhaps?
posted by ifjuly at 9:19 AM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, I can't remember if she's actually married to him or not, but Bound has a helluva climax in this vein.
posted by ifjuly at 9:20 AM on January 20, 2011 [4 favorites]

There have been a few film adaptations of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.
posted by Jonathan Harford at 9:25 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

A Street Car Named Desire
posted by zizzle at 9:27 AM on January 20, 2011

A fantastic version in which a doormat daughter (Bette Davis!) learns to stand up to her mother: Now, Voyager.
posted by amelioration at 9:29 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dolores Claiborne
posted by MrBCID at 9:32 AM on January 20, 2011

sleeping with the enemy is the classic, but my favorite is she-devil, starring roseanne and meryl streep.

A little bit darker is the original BBC version The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. It's pretty awesome in that BBC English television sort of way.
posted by kimdog at 9:34 AM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sliding Doors - for whatever reason I've always liked this fairly overlooked movie; double plotline in which the (fiancee, not wife) either catches or doesn't catch the affair, and two stories continue in parallel as doormat and not-doormat.
posted by aimedwander at 9:37 AM on January 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

Mildred Pierce.
posted by keener_sounds at 9:48 AM on January 20, 2011

What's Love Got to Do With It?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:54 AM on January 20, 2011

Born Yesterday

...Although Judy Holliday's character Billie Dawn isn't a wife she's the main woman in her boyfriend's life & seems to live with him full time.
posted by zarah at 9:58 AM on January 20, 2011

Legally Blonde - sorta - a character is able to stand up to her ex and get her dog back.
posted by Sassyfras at 9:58 AM on January 20, 2011

Bread & Tulips
American Dreamer
(more fun romps than super-serious, but the long-suffering wife does stand up for herself in the end)
posted by paisley sheep at 10:00 AM on January 20, 2011

Definitely Waitress
posted by pulled_levers at 10:09 AM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's not a major part of the story, but this happens with Emilia and Iago's relationship in Othello, of which there are of course many film adaptations.
posted by phoenixy at 10:13 AM on January 20, 2011

The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (avoid the R-rated edit, which eviscerates the plot)
posted by Orinda at 10:15 AM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Cemetery Junction.
posted by tel3path at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2011

Provoked.
posted by carolr at 10:43 AM on January 20, 2011

The First Wives Club (Diane Keaton's character)
posted by nakedmolerats at 10:45 AM on January 20, 2011

Serial Mom.
posted by electroboy at 10:57 AM on January 20, 2011

Steel Magonolia's (not the main plot with Julia Roberts, but a sub plot)
posted by CharlieSue at 11:10 AM on January 20, 2011

Drop Dead Fred
posted by to recite so charmingly at 11:49 AM on January 20, 2011

"Oh Charles, I forgot to give you something" aaand snot onto face.
posted by to recite so charmingly at 11:52 AM on January 20, 2011

Scenes from a Marriage (Dir: Ingmar Bergman).
posted by HandfulOfDust at 12:01 PM on January 20, 2011

The Color Purple
posted by castlebravo at 12:41 PM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

True Lies
posted by alicat at 12:43 PM on January 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Jill Scott's character is a terrible doormat who becomes stronger in Why Did I Get Married?
posted by Danila at 1:10 PM on January 20, 2011

More about domestic abuse than being a 'doormat', but Once Were Warriors might fit.
posted by fso at 1:39 PM on January 20, 2011

The recent film I Am Love had that feeling.
posted by chowflap at 2:20 PM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Doesn't exactly 'stand up for herself' but.. turns out to be a lot more than anybody suspected. Spoiler, so this movie from 1990.
posted by war wrath of wraith at 4:42 PM on January 20, 2011

Chocolat (the side-plot with Lena Olin's character).
posted by Gator at 5:15 PM on January 20, 2011

Seconding Shirley Valentine. What a great film.
posted by cyndigo at 5:50 PM on January 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm Staying! - for the French interpretation. The Stepmother for Russian flavor.
posted by Jurate at 4:01 AM on January 21, 2011