Meryl Streep's performance as a bitchy romance novelist Mary Fisher has been considered a precursor and companion piece to her later role as ruthless magazine editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) made and released around seventeen years later.
Ruth's dress changes from the time she leaves the house prior to the explosion to the time the house explodes and once again back to the former dress when she escorts Andy and Nicolette away from the rubble.
When Mary Fisher is making faces in the mirror in her bedroom you can see the shadow of the cameraman on her reflection after she puts her white brush down on the dressing table.