Fatal Attraction

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Fatal Attraction
Directed by Adrian Lyne
Produced by Stanley R. Jaffe
Sherry Lansing
Written by James Dearden
Starring Michael Douglas
Glenn Close
Anne Archer
Editing by Michael Kahn
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) September 11, 1987 (premiere)
September 18, 1987 (wide)
Running time 119 min.
Language English
Budget $14,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Fatal Attraction is an Academy Award nominated 1987 thriller about a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end and who becomes obsessed with him. It stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. It was directed by Adrian Lyne. The film was adapted by James Dearden and Nicholas Meyer from an earlier short film by Dearden for British TV entitled Diversion. The movie closely follows the plot of Play Misty For Me (1970).

Fatal Attraction was a smash hit, becoming the highest grossing film of 1987 in the United States and hugely popular internationally. Critics were enthusiastic of the film, and it received six Academy Award nominations, including that for Best Picture. The character of Alex Forrest has been cited as a notable film example of a person with borderline personality disorder.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Dan Gallagher is a successful, happily married New York attorney living in Manhattan when he meets Alex Forrest, an editor from a publishing company, through business. While his wife and his daughter are out of town for the weekend, Dan has a brief affair with Alex. What Dan thought would be a simple fling turns into a dangerous sequence of events when Alex begins to cling to him obsessively.

Alex Forrest's mental instability initially surfaces when she attempts suicide after Dan explains to her that he must go home and get on with his life. Dan thinks the affair is forgotten, but Alex begins to show up at various places to see him. She is waiting for him at his office one day to apologize and invite him to an opera of Madame Butterfly with her, but he turns her down. She then begins to call Dan's office until he tells his secretary he will no longer take her calls. When he confronts her about her actions, she replies, "Well, what am I supposed to do? You won't answer my calls, you change your number, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan!" Alex starts calling Dan's home and then informs Dan that she is pregnant and planning to keep the baby. Although Dan wants nothing to do with her, she argues that he must take responsibility.

Dan moves his family to the New York village of Mount Kisco, but Alex continues to stalk him. She has a voice recording delivered to Dan and follows him home one night to spy on him, his wife Beth, and their daughter Ellen from the bushes in his yard; the sight of their family life literally makes her sick to her stomach. Alex's obsession, which grows stronger as time goes on, eventually turns into madness.

Alex's rage eventually escalates into madness, slowly exposing her severe mental illness
Alex's rage eventually escalates into madness, slowly exposing her severe mental illness

At one point, while the Gallaghers are away from home, Alex even kills Dan's daughter Ellen's pet rabbit and puts it on their stove to boil.

Dan tells Beth of the affair and Alex's pregnancy, and after getting over the initial shock and anger, she forgives him. Then Beth warns Alex over the phone that if she persists, she will kill her. Alex goes on to kidnap Ellen from school one day, though she brings Ellen home unharmed (after taking her to a park and buying her ice cream). Meanwhile, Beth is injured in a car accident while searching for her child in a panic.

Finally, Alex becomes determined to eliminate what she sees as her main obstacle--Dan's wife. While Beth is in the bathroom, Alex's reflection appears in the mirror. As she attacks Beth with a butcher knife, Dan hears the screaming and runs in, wrestling Alex into the bathtub and drowning her... or so he thinks. She suddenly emerges from the water, swinging her knife at him. Beth, who had gone in search of Dan's recently-purchased gun, appears in the doorway and shoots her in the chest instantly killing her.

[edit] Reaction

After its release, Fatal Attraction engendered much discussion of the potential consequences of infidelity. Feminists did not appreciate the depiction of Alex's (Glenn Close's) character as a strong career woman who is at the same time profoundly psychotic, seeing in this an implication that all independent women are violently unstable[1]. Feminist Susan Faludi discussed the film in her book "Backlash", arguing that major changes had been made to the original plot in order to make Alex wholly negative, while the carelessness and the lack of compassion and responsibility shown by Dan raised no discussion.

The film has also had an effect on men. Glenn Close is quoted in 2008 as saying, "Men still come up to me and say, 'You scared the shit out of me.' Sometimes they say, 'You saved my marriage.'"[2]

Many critics felt that the film reflected a more negative attitude towards casual sex during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

The film grossed US$156.6 million and was the 2nd highest grossing film of 1987 behind Three Men and a Baby. [3]

Much of the movie's plot was spoofed in the 1993 comedy Fatal Instinct.

The movie is referenced in the 1993 romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle. Jonah Baldwin wants his widowed father Sam, played by Tom Hanks, to go to New York to meet Annie (Meg Ryan), but Sam refuses because he has weekend plans with another woman (whom Jonah dislikes). In a heated argument, Sam tells Jonah there is no way he will fly to New York to meet a woman who could be a "crazy, sick lunatic". Sam then asks Jonah if he saw Fatal Attraction, to which Jonah replies, "You wouldn't let me!" Sam then continues, "Well I saw it! It scared the shit outta me! It scared the shit outta every man in America!"

[edit] Alternate ending

Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) was originally scripted to commit suicide at the end of the movie and make it look like Dan (Michael Douglas) had murdered her, for which he would be subsequently arrested. Test audiences did not respond well to this finale, mainly due to a lack of revenge from Beth and the family. Especially when Beth tells Alex "If you come near my family again I'll kill you". This resulted in a three week re-shoot for the action-filled sequence in the bathroom and Alex's death by shooting. The shooting of Alex by Beth directly juxtaposes the two characters, with Alex being the victim and Beth taking violent action to protect her family.[4]

Glenn Close states in the 2002 Special Edition DVD she had concerns about re-shooting the ending of the movie because she believed, and was backed up by psychiatrists, that the character would "self destruct, and commit suicide"[5]. She gave in on her concerns, and recorded the new sequence after two weeks of fighting not to change it.[6]

[edit] Awards

The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Glenn Close), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Anne Archer), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

[edit] Depiction of borderline personality disorder

The main character has been the subject of discussion by psychiatrists and film experts alike, and used as a famous film example of Borderline personality disorder. She highlights the emotional instability of the disorder and the frantic attempts to avoid abandonment. However, both cases show a person more aggressive to others than to herself; the latter is a more usual outcome in these situations.[7]

[edit] Cast

[edit] References

  1. ^ Remembering Fatal Attraction 2002 DVD Special Features
  2. ^ Close says boiling that bunny saved marriages
  3. ^ Fatal Attraction at Box Office Mojo; last accessed August 5, 2007
  4. ^ Remembering Fatal Attraction 2002 DVD Special Features
  5. ^ Remembering Fatal Attraction 2002 DVD Special Features
  6. ^ Remembering Fatal Attraction 2002 DVD Special Features
  7. ^ Wedding D, Boyd MA, Niemiec RM (2005). Movies and Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology. Cambridge,MA: Hogrefe, p. 59. ISBN 0-88937-292-6. 

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Stakeout		 Box office number-one films of 1987 (USA)
September 21, 1987 – November 15, 1987		 Succeeded by
The Running Man