Liaison fatale

A married man (Michael Douglas)'s one night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover (Glenn Close) begins to stalk him and his family.

Apparently when this film came out it had some feminist backlash because it appears to show a career woman as psychotic, while the stay-at-home wife is good and subservient. That is one way to read it, but it would be putting meaning in there that probably was never intended.

This is quite simply someone with mental issues going after another person. It has a bit of a morality tale in there, scaring men off of cheating. But there is not much in it about gender. It simple works better as a psychotic woman rather than a man, because a psychotic man with a knife is pretty mundane.

The plot of Fatal Attraction is well known and supposedly, when the movie was released, it terrified married men to the extent that it reduced adultery rates, or so the story goes. I find that mildly amusing and hard to verify.

What is more interesting is the character of Alex, portrayed skillfully by Glenn Close. The fact that Close didn't have the typical physique to play a "femme fatale" makes her role even more compelling, demonstrating the unpredictability of attraction. Her Alex is only mildly attractive but exudes a wild, deranged sexuality. Her frizzy hair, lack of eyebrows, and pale mouth didn't enhance her appearance, but Alex compensated with aggressive outfits and a matching attitude.

Some have tried to frame her as a feminist icon, but Alex is just a deranged, damaged criminal. At the start of the movie, it's clear that she's leading Dan where she wants him. During their dinner, Dan says, "This will end the way you want it," indicating that the idea was a no-strings-attached one-night stand between consenting adults, especially since Alex knew Dan was married.

They spend another day together because Alex insists, but Dan never gives the impression that he is in love with her or anything more than temporarily interested.

What is bizarre is Alex's change of behavior when Dan shows no further interest. From an independent professional, Alex transforms into a clingy, begging mess of a woman, which is explained vaguely, if at all.

While Dan's infidelity is not justified, I think he receives a punishment far harsher than he deserves. It's not true that he "used" Alex, who was more than willing to be used (as seen in the elevator scene). Moreover, falling out of love-or in this case, out of lust-is not a crime.

Alex turns into a violently aggressive psycho, and if the genders were reversed, everyone would side with the married person. Imagine a man harassing a former female lover with nonstop phone calls, destroying her car, and kidnapping her child. Everyone would scream "Stalker!" So why is Alex seen as a "feminist" and not a criminal?

All the lead actors were excellent, including Douglas, Archer, and Latzen, who played one of the few genuinely cute kids I've seen on screen. It's a pity about the over-the-top ending.

Micheal Douglas (With the possible exception of his academy award winning turn as Gordon Gekko) tends to play nice guys who do some shady things. In this case he's Dan Gallagher, living the perfect 80s lifestyle with his wife and kid, they are about to leave the city and move to a suburb to raise a family, but at a party, he meets Alex, played by Glen Close. Adrian Lyne and his actors do a good job of showing us the instant attraction between the two without saying much. Nothing happens, but a second encounter puts all the cards on the table for what seems like a no strings attached bed room dance, and Dan is all like, "why not, my wife and kid are out of the city looking at houses, I can do this. So he gives her the passion right on the kitchen counter". So they had fun while his wife is away, no big deal, now we can go back to our regular lives right? Right?

Unfortunately for Dan, this is not a Woody Allen movie, the consequences for stepping out on your wife don't end in a comedic folly. As they are having fun, he notices slowly what he just gotten into, with jokes about seeing her father die and her getting very upset when he leaves during their second encounter.

Then she goes bonkers--real bonkers and just when he thought he had her under control, she just increases the level of Bonkers (An impressive feat might I add cause when you watch it, Alex gives a WTF moment, she only tops as the movie goes on).

It's effecting his work (Lucky it did not effect his relationship with his boss Herman Munster from the Munsters, cause you know, wouldn't want him to do the Munster mash on you), and of course she's effecting his wife in kid. It's a hard lesson to learn.

But it's hard not to still love Micheal Douglas in this movie. Like I said his movie star days seem to have him playing appealing men who get involved with some shading things, Douglas is charming and you can't help but to side with him despite this whole thing being his fault.

Stranger for me is that Anne Archer, who plays his wife in the movie was a hot number here. Every time she smiled, I thought to myself "Why would he cheat on her?"

I can tell you why. Glenn Close is really sexy in this picture. That's what she has going for her here, mad sex appeal. She was oozing it on the screen and as charismatic as Douglas is, Close fuels the fire. You really could not blame him for wanting to get a piece of that (Which in reality is why he should not have done it cause she made it all too easy for him. I mean way too easy, so easy you knew it was going to end badly).

Fatal Attraction has an amazing story well done by the director and the actors that allows it to stand the test of time despite it being so engulfed in the decade it was filmed. Me personally, I remember this New York and all the places they filmed so I was in heaven. All the wide shots of the landscapes were done for dramatic feel (especially one scene were Alex followed Dan home), not knowing that one day looking back on this would take me to that time and place and make the movie even better after almost thirty years.

And thirty years later, it's still one of those movies that people reference when they talk about how looney tunes your significant other can get. Not a bad legacy for it at all.

http://cinemagardens.com

"Fatal Attraction" is one of those famous things that got people talking during every free moment – and also one that's sure to be spoiled if you're like me and wait 30 years to see it.

Plot-wise, I know that to expect; but it still surprised me in some ways. Like the character of Alex Forrest. She doesn't have very much depth and it reduced to a stock schizo, but you wouldn't know it from Glenn Close's performance. Alex's (let's call them) antics have an unpredictability to them. Even when they're outlandish, they still work towards terrorizing Michael Douglas. She just keeps closing in, man. I don't think I'm really spoiling anything by saying Douglas eventually comes clean to his wife (Anne Archer) about the affair and that look of abject devastation on her face is horrible.

If the writing ever fails you (and it gets iffy) the acting won't. This can be a real nail- biter at times, and that's because the performances elevate the trashy script.

7/10

So here we have it, the granddaddy of the psycho-thriller genre and in all respects a more subtle and realistic film than you'd expect from a genre that later descended into cheesy madness and inanity. By the time these run of films had finished – and there are still some B-movies coming out, here and there – we'd had psychotic babysitters, mothers, fathers, children, nurses, co-workers, you name it. But FATAL ATTRACTION is the one that kicked them all off in a wave of popularity, even if there were precedents in the likes of Eastwood's PLAY MISTY FOR ME and the slasher genre. It's a simple story of the archetypal happy family and what happens when the father and husband has an affair with an unhinged woman.

Michael Douglas is on top form as the slightly sleazy family guy who can't resist shacking up with loopy Glenn Close when his wife (Anne Archer) is away. Douglas later found a home in this type of film, menaced by more adulteresses (Sharon Stone) and even his own boss (Demi Moore). Here, though, he's fresher faced and more realistic, with the script making no bones of his adultery and the way he betrays both his wife and child by having an affair while they're away. Glenn Close is frightening in the role that made her name, but I have to say she doesn't cut it as an object of desire – with that hairstyle she looks like a maniac from the outset! The realism of the plot excludes the kind of murderous rampage sequences that later popularised the genre, and it's all the more chilling for it – the suicide attempt scene is far more disturbing than watching a madwoman running amok with a kitchen knife. Then, of course, there's that scene involving the favourite family pet that's rightly gone down in history as one of the most memorable of all time, and a now-familiar shock climax to polish things off. I did find the film somewhat subdued in places where it could have been more thrilling, but that's because it plays it as a character drama for the most part, more interested in getting to grips with Close's psychosis than bumping off a string of inconsequential types.