Software designer Alison Jones (Bridget Fonda, LITTLE BUDDHA) breaks up with her fiancé Sam (WINGS' Steven Weber) after discovering that he slept with his ex-wife. New to the city, Alison is also rendered professionally vulnerable by an acrimonious break-up with her business partner that left her with the software and a rent-controlled apartment, leaving her further humiliated in an attempt to get the upper hand negotiating with a new client (Stephen Tobolowsky, MEMENTO). Against the advice of her gay actor neighbor Graham (Peter Friedman, THE SEVENTH SIGN), Alison decides to find a roommate: cue the montage of various weirdoes and wackos. Just on the point of calling Sam and trying to get him back, Alison is surprised by the disarming Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh, EYES OF A STRANGER) who seems a similarly lost, kindred spirit. They become fast friends, with the relatively more outgoing Alison giving Hedra fashion tips, and Hedra gifting her an adopted dog while also providing her with emotional backup against Sam's repeated attempts to contact her. When Sam does manage to work his way back into Alison's life, however, a series of increasingly deadly incidents have Alison suspecting that her roommate doesn't just want to be like her; she wants to become her.

Based on the novel "SWF Seeks Same," SINGLE WHITE FEMALE was part of the nineties trend of "… from hell" films of the nineties that included nannies, babysitters, temps, stepparents, and significant others that had more intimate access to the protagonists than the average stalker. The film's moral is not that of being cautious of batshit crazy roommates, however, so much as not defining your entirety through others, which is true of both characters: Alison being chided by Graham for feeling like she is nothing without Sam – she even mentions in the opening scene that she is new to New York and knows few people, but also feels like Sam is the only person she needs – and Hedra who confesses that she has felt incomplete as the sister of a stillborn twin (which suggests at that point that the opening credits scene is imagined or that she has revised her past). The New York of SINGLE WHITE FEMALE is a little dingy, but very much the nineties NYC of FRIENDS, albiet lensed in pale blues by Luciano Tovoli – who discovered on the set that Fonda was a fan of SUSPIRIA leading to her casting in the aborted initial concept version of Dario Argento's THE STENDHAL SYNDROME which was intended to be lensed in Arizona – who would later lens Shroeder's recent return to feature filmmaking AMNESIA. The apartment building setting, the Beaux-Arts-style Ansonia Hotel – which would serve as the location for the ROSEMARY'S BABY-esque 666 PARK AVENUE – is the sort of once-luxurious building turned rent-controlled hell in which residents – among them TWIN PEAKS' Frances Bay and THE THING's Kenneth Tobey – have to deal with repairs themselves for fear of drawing attention to their roommates or pets not included on the lease agreement (or those in which residents are living there under a previous resident's lease). Costume designer Milena Canonero (DEATH AND THE MAIDEN) also served as production designer after having served as visual consultant on Schroeder's BARFLY. Howard Shore (DEAD RINGERS) provides one of his many nondescript nineties orchestral/electronic scores, here supporting tunes by Enigma and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde as guest vocalist for Moodswings' cover of Vangelis' "The State of Independence" over the closing credits. Screenwriter Don Roos' next thriller would be Jeremiah Chechik's remake of DIABOLIQUE. THE INTRUDER's Renée Estevez – sister of Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen – has a brief appearance as a seemingly ideal roommate applicant.