Mortal Thoughts

Mortal Thoughts is a 1991 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Demi Moore, Glenne Headly, Bruce Willis, John Pankow, and Harvey Keitel. Told in narrative flashbacks set in a police interrogation, the film centers on a woman implicated in the violent murder of her friend's abusive, drug-addicted husband. Its title is derived from a quote in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth. In addition to starring in the film, Moore also served as a co-producer, and offered to pay the cast and crew overtime when the film's original director, Claude Kerven, was fired and replaced by Rudolph. Plot Cynthia Kellogg is interrogated by Detective John Woods and Detective Linda Nealon at a police station regarding the murder of her husband, Artie. Cynthia provides a deposition, relayed in detailed flashbacks. Cynthia recounts her employment as a hairdresser at her friend Joyce's Bayonne, New Jersey hair salon. Joyce's husband, Jimmy, is a violently abusive drug addict, and Joyce expresses a desire to kill him several times. One night, Cynthia accompanies Joyce and Jimmy to a Feast of Saint Rocco festival. After Jimmy becomes drunk and picks a fight with Joyce, he heads back to their van. Cynthia follows him and takes the keys, leaving him to sleep in the back of the vehicle. Per Cynthia's account of events, the two women returned to the van later on to find Jimmy dead inside, his throat slashed; Cynthia claims Joyce admitted to cutting his neck after she went to check on him, during which he attacked her. According to Cynthia, at Joyce's insistence, the women disposed of Jimmy's body by dumping it in a ravine. After the murder, Cynthia returns home covered in blood and admits to her husband, Artie, what happened. Several days later, after Jimmy's body is found, Joyce's paranoia about being caught causes her to act increasingly erratically. At one point, she instructs Cynthia to kill one of the hairdressers at the salon out of fear she will tarnish the women's alibis. Joyce subsequently discovers that Artie knows about the murder, and she threatens to Cynthia that she will kill him to silence him. Cynthia does not believe Joyce can actually carry out her threats; however, after Artie is found shot dead at his home on Christmas Eve, Cynthia accuses Joyce.