Bedazzled: A Devilish Journey to Self Confidence Lovesick, desperate, eager to please, doormat, these are the first words that introduce the audience to the character of Elliot Richards in the movie Bedazzled. These descriptions are stuck to him as he arrives at his desk job in San Francisco. With a smile Elliot is gentlemanly enough to hold the door open for a lady, and when many other people then take advantage of his generosity, you can watch the smile melt from his face. Elliot Richards is a character that is lonely and unsatisfied with his life, and through a crazy journey of self-discovery, he becomes who he has always wanted to be. At the beginning of this journey, Elliot, a white male, seemingly in his late twenties to early thirties, is a nerdy adult. In the first scenes, he is wearing a fully buttoned up shirt with a tie underneath his sweater vest, all of which highlight the large glasses on his face. Elliot seems to hide behind his clothes and his glasses because he is not comfortable with himself. This is evident in the way he relates to his co-workers, he speaks like a middle school child in a work environment. His co-workers avoid him and make sly comments to demean our protagonist as if he would not understand, but because he works at the same level as them, Elliot is obviously a smart guy. Unfortunately, Elliot does not stand up for himself and just smiles and shrugs off their insulting behavior, eager to be accepted by them. One night after being blown off by these co-workers, Elliot goes out to a bar and finds them there as well. They hide their faces and try to avoid being seen by him but Elliot decides to go and sit with them anyway. Suddenly a woman walks in and Elliot’s demeanor changes immediately, he becomes quiet and melancholy with a look of longing in his eyes. It is obvious to his co-workers that he is in love this woman and they make fun of him for it and eventually get him to go talk to her. This woman’s name is Alison Gardner and she has worked with Elliot for four years. She is a very beautiful woman with blonde hair and blue eyes and she comes off a little cold and unattainable. When talking to her, Elliot stumbles over his words and comes off very nervous, which makes Alison uncomfortable and she leaves. All of these initial interactions really give us a sense of where Elliot is in his life. He is a lonely guy who just wants to be accepted by others, but he is afraid to stand up and ask for what he really wants. After being shot down by Alison, Elliot is really down, and then a cue ball rolls to his feet. When he looks up, there is an absolutely beautiful woman standing by the pool table waving him over. Elliot finds it hard to believe that this women is pointing at him, due to what I believe is a severe lack of self-confidence. When he walks over to her and they begin a conversation, this beautiful woman introduces herself to Elliot as The Devil. This news comes as a shock to Elliot and he has trouble believing her. She tells him to wish for something and he wishes he had a big mac and a coke, so she takes him to McDonalds. Elliot still does not believe she is truly the devil until she takes him to her after hour’s club. When they walk through the door, everyone is thrilled to see Elliot as if he is a celebrity in this club, and he absolutely loves the attention and feeling of acceptance. The Devil uses this to her advantage to convince Elliot to sign a contract stating he will surrender his soul to her after the fulfillment of seven wishes. Elliot’s first wish is to be married to Alison as well as to be very rich and powerful. . This wish says a lot about Elliot, being rich, powerful, and married exudes an air of security which he craves. When he awakes in the morning it is a beautiful house next to Alison, he also has three “henchmen” who coincidently where his co-workers before the wish. Sadly, the money and power he gains from this wish is due to the fact that he is a Columbian drug lord, and Alison cannot stand Elliot and is cheating on him with her English teacher Raoul. After narrowly escaping and attack on his cocaine dealing business, Elliot opts out of his first wish and returns to the devil. To apologize for the disastrous first wish, she takes Elliot into Alison’s bedroom to discover what she wants in a man since she was obviously not interested in money and power. By reading her diary they discover she is looking for a sensitive man, therefore Elliot’s second wish is to be the most emotionally sensitive man in the world, and for Alison to love him. This wish finds Elliot and Alison together on the beach having a picnic at sunset. Elliot is extremely sensitive, even the sight of the sunset brings uncontrollable tears to his eyes. He openly expresses his love for Alison, but she seems a little exasperated with him. When three guys (once again, Elliot’s co-workers) come up the beach and kick sand in Elliot’s face, he asks them to leave, but instead one of them convinces Alison to go back to his place for a drink. Elliot is stunned by her decision and begs her to stay with him but instead she confesses that he is just too sensitive and all she wants is a man who will pretend to be interested just to get into her pants. Immediately Elliot returns to the devil greatly disappointed in his second wish, but he figured out from it that women do not really know what they want. For his third wish Elliot asks to become a popular NBA basketball player. At first this wish seemed to be perfect, Elliot is the top player in the league standing at almost 7 feet tall with a stadium full of adoring fans and Alison, now a sports reporter, is desperate for a private interview with the great Elliot Richards. Once in the locker-room, the profusely sweating Elliot wrapped in a very small towel, meets up with Alison and she asks him very flirtatiously for private interview at her home. In this reality, Elliot is quite lacking in the intelligence department, and apparently in one other department when he drops his towel and Alison quickly exits the locker-room calling off the interview. This discovery effectively ends the excitement of this wish and Elliot returns to the devil once again, as would most men. After being the epitome of a dumb jock in his previous wish, Elliot next wishes to be extremely intelligent, handsome, witty, and well liked. He is still hoping that the next wish he makes will culminate in the life he had always envisioned for himself. We now find Elliot at an upscale party with many people including once again different versions of his co-workers who adore him in this scenario. The fact that his co-workers play apart in every one of his wishes suggest once again the deep yearning Elliot has to be accepted by them. Once he starts to mingle with the crowd we discover Elliot Richard is now a successful author, a little pretentious, and he knows everything about everything. Once again Alison is present and she has read all of Elliot’s books, as a big fan she is nervous to talk to him. After a few drinks the two of them have a conversation that becomes sexual and Elliot invites Alison back to his place. When they arrive, the infatuated Alison is thrilled to be there until they arrive in the bedroom and lying on the bed is a man in silk pajamas. This man claims to be Elliot’s boyfriend to the surprise of both Alison and Elliot; therefore Alison decides it’s time for her to leave. At the request of Elliot, she offers him a chance to prove he is not gay, and there share what appears to be a very passionate kiss. When the kiss ends however, Elliot states “Yep, I’m gay.” This realization in his current reality causes Elliot to quickly end the wish and return to the devil once again. At this point Elliot is starting to realize a few things about him self and his wish patterns. So far all of his wishes have been either to change himself to please Alison, or to change himself to be better liked by people he doesn’t really even know. Elliot decides his next wish should be about positive change and asks to be made the President of the United states. It seems like a nice wish, but Elliot did not specify that he wanted to be the current president and instead becomes the 16th president of the United States, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, on the night of his assassination. Needless to say the assassination effectively ends this wish for Elliot. After being shot at, Elliot does not return straight to the devil, but instead goes to work for the first time since meeting her. It is visually apparent that after five failed wishes, this is not the same Elliot we saw in the beginning of the movie. He is still wearing a button up shirt but has ditched the tie, sweater vest, and the glasses. Elliot is tired, his hair is a little disheveled, and he seems generally broken down. Once seated in his cubicle, Elliot’s computer monitor pops on displaying the face of the devil, she asks him if he is ready to make his last wish. Elliot believes he has two wishes left but she disagrees starting that he was rich and powerful, super sensitive, a professional basketball player, an intelligent author, the president, and she got him a big mac and a coke, which makes six wishes leaving him left with one. This infuriates Elliot because he does not think the big mac and a coke should count so he yells at her and storms out of the office. The frustration Elliot is feeling leads him to a church, where the priest can see that he is obviously upset by the way he is looking up and wringing his hands. When the priest asks Elliot what is wrong he replies “I need to talk to God.” The priest tells Elliot that God hears us all through the power of prayer but of course that is not what Elliot means. Still the priest asks Elliot to talk to him and explain what is wrong, so Elliot tells him the whole story. The next thing we see is Elliot being hauled out of the church by two police officers who charge him with being drunk and disorderly. With only one wish left, we find Elliot in jail contemplating the idea of his soul and staring at an eternity in Hell. He does not seem sad, but rather disappointed in his decision to sell something so important for little or nothing in return. Elliot’s cell mate tells him he can’t really sell his soul because it never belonged to him in the first place, it belongs to God. After one night in jail, Elliot has new clarity and seeks out the devil in her after-hours club. When Elliot walks through the door the crowd’s reaction to him is the same as it was the first time he walked in, but this time he is not affected by their meaningless praise. He walks into the devils office and she assumes that he there to make his last wish but he tells her that is not the case. Elliot confidently tells her that he does not want his last wish because he has realized that she cannot really give him what he wants. He has spent many nights thinking how nice it would be if someone would come in and just wave their magic wand and give him a better life, but now he knows that life is about the journey and nothing worth having can just be given to him magically. The devil becomes very angry with Elliot and tells him he must make his seventh wish as stated in his contract and uses scare tactics, specifically bringing him to hell and stabbing at him with a pitch fork, to force him to make a wish. Elliot’s final wish is for Alison to have a happy life. Elliot awakens on the court house stairs next to the devil and she proceeds to tell him that his last wish, due to its complete lack of personal gain, has voided the contract. This means that Elliot gets to continue to live his life and he gets to keep his soul, which of course makes him completely ecstatic. Elliot and the devil part ways and he goes back to work to talk to Alison for the first time since that night in the bar. He has much more confidence in the he speaks to her after his experience with the devil, and her asks her out on a date, but she is already seeing someone else. Elliot accepts her answer and wishes her luck, showing that he is maturing and no longer obsessed with the idea of himself and Alison. When he reaches his cubicle, one of Elliot’s co-workers has put on a pair of glasses and approaches him in the same manner Elliot had in the beginning of the movie. Back then Elliot probably would have just laughed and let it roll off of his back. After everything he has been through Elliot is no longer prepared to be pushed around or accept less than he deserves so he grabs this co-worker and firmly states “Nice talking to you bob,” and Elliot releases him. On his way home, he discovers he has a new neighbor moving in, and when she emerges, she looks very similar to Alison. This girl introduces herself as Nicole, Elliot offers to hook up her speakers and make her some diner. Now that Elliot has opened himself up to new possibilities and started to be happy with himself, he is ready to start making a better life for himself. In the last scene we see Elliot and Nicole strolling hand in hand through the park and they both look extremely happy. In conclusion, Elliot Richards was a lonely guy without a lot of confidence in himself until he met the devil. She offered him everything thing he ever wanted, but could not deliver on this promise. Elliot realized the journey was what was important, your actions and decisions determine how much happiness you have in your life, and that the only person who could get him all of the things he wanted out if life was himself.

Works Cited
Bedazzled, Dir. Harold Ramis. Prod. Trevor Albert and Harold Ramis. Perf. Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, and Frances O'Connor. 20th Century Fox, 2000. DVD