Fatal attraction
Year of release : 1987
Run time : 1h59m
Genre : Psychological Thriller
Cast : Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer
The movie is a remake of the short 1980 British movie Diversion, written and directed by James Dearden, who also wrote the script for this one.
Dan Gallagher seems to live the perfect life : he has a beautiful wife, a daughter, and is a successful Manhattan lawyer.
The evening the movie starts, he and his wife go to a book launch party, where his married friend sees Alex, but she blows him off.
Later on, Dan stops at the bar, next to Alex, and starts talking to her. Alex tells him she’s an editor at a publishing company, so she’s a smart woman.
Dan’s life seems to be set in a routine, take the dog out, share the bed with their daughter every other night, as she sleeps in their bed.
One weekend his wife takes their daughter to her parents’ place to spend the weekend, and check the house down the street from them, as they want to buy one.
The very same day, at work, he meets Alex again, at her company’s meeting with him, regarding a client who filed a suit against the publication, as the client thinks the author used his image.
After the meeting ,Alex sees Dan outside, as he tries to open his broken umbrella. She offers him a place underneath hers, and they end up going to a restaurant together, “until the rain stops”.
And they end up at her place, having s3x. Dan spends the night at her place and the next day. He leaves as he has to prepare for a case.
Alex calls him because he left before she woke up and she hates that, and he ends up going to her place again since his wife called telling him she’ll be back on Monday, giving her hopes. He even shares a bit about himself, about his father and his childhood, while listening to the opera Madame Butterfly, and she thinks she got to him.
She gets upset when he leaves the bed to get dressed and leave, and after they fight, as he wants to walk out, he sees she cut her wr1tsts, so he bandages her and spends the night with her.
On Monday, Dan is over her, but Alex thinks they’re together, although she knows he’s married and has a child.
Trying to get him back, she goes to his office, and tells him she has tickets to Madame Butterfly, as he likes it too. Dan refuses her.
Alex starts calling him at the office, and when he refuses to take her calls, she starts calling his home, hanging up when Beth answers. She calls late at night, and asks him to meet at 6 in the morning while going to the subway, telling him she’s pregnant, and she’s keeping the baby, although he doesn’t want her to.
Seeing he doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore, Alex becomes more and more violent, destroying his car, and going as far as going to their place as they’re selling the apartment moving into the new home his wife liked, pretending to be a client interested in buying, just to talk to his wife, and get their new phone number.
I personally enjoyed the movie, not as much as the first time I watched it though.
Alex is a capable woman, with a good career, who is reduced to a psycho due to the unrequited love she feels for a man, she knew was married from the getgo, and still she decided to get involved with him.
Dan seems to be a guy who just saw an opportunity and took it, and once he had her he was over it, thinking she was an easy woman who did this all the time ,and their fling would be just another meaningless encounter for her. He was wrong.
I liked the women’s clothes, jewelry and style, they were all, especially Alex and Beth, very stylish. I also liked Beth’s hair.
The acting was good, ( Glenn Close was great, she deserved the Oscar for this performance ), except from the kid, whom they said was a girl, but looked like a boy (her hair was short like a boy’s and was always dressed in boy clothes-pants).
A bit of movie trivia : both Glenn Close and Michael Douglas were 40 years old when they filmed the movie, but don’t look it.
The soundtrack was good.
The movie received critical acclaim, with 6 Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for Glenn Close and Best Supporting Actress for Anne Archer; and 4 Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress- Drama for Glenn Close and Best Supporting Actress for Anne Archer.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A.
The movie grossed close to 344 million dollars against a budget of 14 million dollars, being the 2nd highest grossing movie of the year in the USA!
Many actresses, among which Michelle Pfeiffer, Barbara Hershey (who was unavailable at the time of shooting), Miranda Richardson (who turned it down allegedly saying it was hideous), Ellen Barkin, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Melanie Griffith and Judy Davis were considered to play Alex.
Apparently the movie had a different ending which didn’t test well with audiences, and they had to reshoot the ending, thing the actors didn’t like, as they liked the original ending.
The movie spawned a 2014 play and a 2023 tv series adaptation.
Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity.
Rating : Worth a watch !