Fatal Attraction (1987)

I never call my writings reviews; the very word sounds judgmental. I’m a movie lover and I’m not picky about what I watch or what I don’t. That is one of the few reasons that I don’t use the word Review because at some point I might sound critical, which I am not. I have an odd way of picking movies; I usually choose whatever title catches my attention. I don’t even look for the directors or the actors most of the time, I only type and search after I finished watching said movie. There are few genres I venture to regularly; mystery being my first favorite, followed by thrillers. Fatal Attraction (1987) is an erotic psychological thriller film and in all honesty, I have seen better. And well I shouldn’t just be writing about all the great movies, right?

Fatal Attraction (1987)


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Even though I saw this movie almost 3 or 4 years ago, I’m only writing about it now. And until this moment I was completely clueless about the name of director Adrian Lyne although I have seen a few of his movies. The lead cast of this movie are Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, and Anne Archer and I have watched a few of their movies. They are outstanding actors, that’s for sure. So, before I describe what I felt wrong with the movie, I’ll briefly talk about the plot and as you know, I don’t reveal all of it.

The Plot


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Michael Douglas was playing the role of Daniel “Dan” Gallagher is a successful Manhattan lawyer happily married to Beth Gallagher played by Anne Archer. Dan’s work led him to Glenn Close as Alexandra “Alex” Forrest, an editor for a publishing company. After their initial encounter, Dan and Alex felt the chemistry between them and while Dan’s family was away for the weekend, they had a brief affair, the “no strings attached” type or so what Dan thought at the moment. Soon Dan found out even though it was a fling for him, but that wasn’t the same with Alex; she became obsessive with Dan, which didn’t sit right with him. Alex then forced Dan to spend more time with her, followed by an attempted suicide to keep him with her and many other manipulation tactics. Later on, it was evident that Dan’s family became a target for Alex and the dangers were looming over them.

It’s not really wise to have a fling on the side now, is it? I’m sure Dan had realized it the hard way, and so had Alex.

My Observation


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As I have said before, it will not be great movies only that I’ll write about, and Fatal Attraction isn’t one. Although the plot is moderately okay, I wonder if there could be any alternate outcome; yes, there were alternate endings to this plot but all of that ends somewhat similar. You can say that the movie is about consequences, maybe it is. The characters are off-putting but that’s my assumption. On one side there’s Dan who has everything he could possibly want for but that didn’t seem enough and had a one-night stand that led to tragedy, but on the other side was his dutiful wife who didn’t think twice before forgiving him or start over their life again. And then there’s also Alex who was pathological but Glenn Close (even though a brilliant actress) her overall performance seemed too dramatic and exerted more than she should. That’s perhaps what I didn’t like about the movie, how the characters were portrayed or how everything was just ostentatious; it was just too much of everything. It was supposed to be a psychological thriller, but somewhat felt like it was far from being anything but that; Hollywood killed the story and the movie even though it was such a big hit at the time of its release.

I suppose I may have been a bit too harsh, but I was going for an unbiased opinion. And even though I try my opinions to not be deprecatory but in some cases, I can’t just stop myself from pointing out what feels wrong with the overall story. Maybe I was expecting more than I should have. I’m not sure if you’ll agree with it.

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