Review of Fatal Attraction (1987) by Sara C — 24 Nov 2010

The story of Adrian Lyne's 'Fatal Attraction' is pretty much what the title suggests. Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) has a successful career, seemingly happy marriage complete with a daughter and a dog. When his wife goes away on a trip, he finds himself falling for the attraction of Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) allowing an affair to be formed. When Dan decides to end the affair, the 'fatal' part creeps more into our story as we begin to witness her crazy acts of instability.

The premise of this film is truly engaging. The idea is unsettling and makes you question how much you really know about a person. It is this film which coined the term 'bunny boiler' and for anyone who has seen this...you will literally understand why. In spite of this, I still thought there was something missing...

I was already looking at the clock 20minutes into the film and that was something that persisted throughout its entirety. It's not that I was necessarily bored...but rather had more to do with the lack of pace that it had. The musical score did not leave a lasting impression on me so obviously it was not an effective component in creating the atmosphere...hence why the pace was probably so slow.

I have never really been much of a Douglas fan, it's not to say he's a bad actor, he just never does anything that really makes me go 'wow'. His voice annoys me, his face annoys me and how he ever managed to pull Catherine Zeta Jones I'll never understand. As a result, my negativity towards the film was probably heightened. It's hard to fault Glenn Close. She played her character extremely well and was very believable and scary in her role as a sufferer of multiple personality disorder. Although she was good, I wouldn't necessarily credit Glenn massively as I think it is a role that many actresses would be able to play (obviously NOT Kristen Stewart, Juliette Lewis, Keira Knightly or Scarlett Johanson...) but many talented actresses.

(SPOILER) I can't honestly say I was much of a fan of the ideas the ending suggested. It basically said to me, if you have an affair, all you need to do for your wife to take you back is to: make sure the woman in question is a psycho and puts your life in danger. She will cause lots of drama and pain in your wife's life, but you will eventually stop her. After it all, your wife will be so relieved that it's over she'd happily fall back into your arms and forget it ever happened.

OK, so I have ranted about this film quite a lot. But would I watch it again? Yes. Perhaps not immediately, but within time I would be open to a second viewing. Although I don't think Lyne reached the full potential that this film had in many ways...I still greatly enjoyed the script and was entertained by it. I wouldn't praise this highly, but that does not mean that it does not deserve any praise at all. A lot of people would probably disagree with me on this, but I think it's one of those films that is widely open to debate.