Review of Fatal Attraction (1987) by Chris G — 29 May 2009

Fatal Attraction is about a lawyer (Michael Douglas) who seems to have the perfect, nuclear wife, child, almost home in the country who suddenly decides to have an affair with a woman he meets in conjunction with his business dealings named Alex (Glenn Close). It's supposed to mean nothing, but Alex goes bat shit, attempts suicide, and decides to make Dan's (Douglas) life a living hell.

I have one question about this film. How in the hell does it get the credit of starting a generation of "love turns them psycho" films that we got pelted with in the late '80's and the '90's. Fatal Attraction is obviously a remake of Clint Eastwood's Play Misty For Me from 1971. It's been updated for the yuppie generation with Eastwood's hippish California DJ who uses his radio prowess to bed ladies into Douglas' lawyer who is living in New York City because hippies were replaced by yuppies because we all wanted to be big shots in New York and the man whore DJ becomes the family man because AIDS was scaring the hell out of us in 1987. How no one got sued over this I have no idea.

Close is every man's nightmare- a woman who won't go away. I know that Michael Douglas is supposed to be the victim here, but you can see her point. Right? She delivers a performance that makes us feel sorry for her one minute, then we're scared to death she's going to do "something", then we just hate her to the point of wanting her dead. You've heard of the bad penny? She's a truckload of them.

Other than Close, this is your typical '80's film with stylish crap and a country house to get away from it all. It's entertaining, though if you've seen Misty you know what the hell is going to happen.