Review: Fatal Attraction

Fatal Attraction is still notable for Glenn Close’s resilient, complex performance.

Fatal Attraction
Photo: Paramount Pictures

Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) goes playing in the Meat Packing District with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) when his goody-two-shoes wife (Anne Archer) leaves for the weekend. Not one to be ignored, Alex goes psycho-bitch when the wife returns and Dan ends their affair. Sure, Alex may be little more than a bunny-boiling stalker and James Dearden’s screenplay is rather unconcerned with the details of her psychosis but Fatal Attraction is still notable for Close’s resilient, complex performance. There’s no subtlety to Dearden’s words (“If looks could kill,” “I love animals,” and “I’m a great cook”) though Close creates a history’s worth of bottled-up repression with her every gesture (the twitch of her lips, the deadness of her stare). Director Adrian Lyne is an underrated visualist. Here he does fabulous things with layers and Howard Atherton’s anemic, unnerving soft-lighting, not to mention Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Still, without the film’s original ending (where Alex’s suicide was set to the opera), the musical reference is lost amid the film’s existing, audience-pleasing showdown between jilted fling and courageous wife. Fatal Attraction is less an all-encompassing comment on female desire than it is a startling reminder of Close’s ability to give a physical face to the subtext of one woman’s inner torment. While Alex’s behavior seems possible, Lyne’s fabulous camera crawls and Close’s frozen stares have never been able to fully compensate for Dearden’s shoddy attention to character history.

Score: 
 Cast: Michael Douglas, Gleen Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Hamilton Latzen, Stuart Pankin, Ellen Foley, Fred Gwyne, Meg Mundy, Tom Brennan, Lois Smith  Director: Adrian Lyne  Screenwriter: James Dearden, Nicholas Meyer  Distributor: Paramount Pictures  Running Time: 117 min  Rating: R  Year: 1987  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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