Review of Fatal Attraction (1987) by Jose Luis M — 15 Jan 2015

"Fatal Attraction" is a horror movie with a moral, a cautionary tale that confirms the blessings of family and fidelity. It is a smart movie that knows what it is doing-every conversation, every plot point is on theme. In a scene near the beginning, a legal team is discussing a book, a woman's fictionalization of her affair with a senator. The senator is threatening to sue for libel, but everyone in the room knows it's true. Next, a woman from the publishing firm (Glenn Close) and a married man from the law firm (Michael Douglas) extend their acquaintance over lunch. Their conversation, of course, quickly turns to indiscretions. This is effective set-dressing from screenwriter James Dearden, if you don't mind being peppered with an idea while it slowly comes to fruition. The movie takes its time to get to the junctures that we know must come, and which it so cleverly telegraphs. The titular attraction, with near fatality, play out in a steamy lost weekend that ends in a suicide attempt. The rest of the film is a tense period of escalation while we wait for the other shoe to drop. This stretch, too, is effective, as the film moves steadily out of the realm of family drama and into the horror genre. Maurice Jarre's score turns eerie and urgent as Douglas's character realizes that his actions have consequences, and that he has ransomed his perfect family to a woman bent on having him at any cost. But it remains rather obvious where things are headed, and if this isn't your first movie, it is possible to become impatient. A high point is the famous rabbit-boiling scene, as clinically executed as everything in the film. The rabbit was a pretty pet, kept only for a day or two, then slashed and drowned. The harrowing climax neatly mirrors this, but not before using a literal mirror in one of those stock horror moments where the killer suddenly appears in the glass. The trick is too old to work, as is the obligatory one-last-ending trope, the unkillable-killer trope. It's perfectly done, but it's too hackneyed. The script's original ending, which was filmed but rejected, is more original and fits just as neatly with all that has come before.

Like almost all horror films, the villain here is the most interesting figure. That's unfortunate, because the real power of the movie is its message about family. It is a ringing injunction against the kind of vain, powerful men who cheat, men who gamble all that they have for no other reason than that they can. Douglas's character is asked twice why he strayed, and the fact that he cannot give an answer is one of Dearden's smartest observations. Nobody could leave this movie wanting to have an affair... unless, of course, they miss the point by focusing on Close's character. And that is easy to do. When the movie it ended, I went over it in my mind searching for clues about her life and her behavior. Why did she lie about her father? Did her miscarriage, if that story was true, trigger her mental instability, or was it a preexisting condition? Can someone so afflicted hold down a stressful publishing job, or was that some kind of ruse? Was she, in fact, none other than the woman who wrote a book about an affair with a senator? Perhaps she used a nom de plume, and that is why she was so certain that the woman was telling the truth. The questions and theories are endless. This is a tribute to Close's acting, but it is also a distraction from the real meaning of the film: that it is wrong to cheat, not because you might cheat with an insane person, but because in cheating you yourself become the danger that jeopardizes the stability of your life and home. "Fatal Attraction" very effectively externalizes that danger, and Close makes the most of the opportunity to bring to life one of cinema's most indelible and tragic villains, but I cannot shake the feeling that Douglas's character gets off the hook a little too cleanly. All he loses, in the end, is a rabbit he never wanted.