While his wife and daughter are out of town, New York attorney Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) has what he believes will be a brief fling with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), a literary editor he meets at an office party. When he later attempts to break off their relationship, Alex informs Dan that she is pregnant and expects him to accept responsibility for his actions. Dan attempts to ignore Alex, but she won’t allow him to simply walk away, even going so far as to endanger the lives of his wife Beth (Anne Archer) and young daughter.

CRITIQUE

I’ve been waiting twenty-two years for someone to explain to me why Fatal Attraction caused such a stir and became a huge hit. I can remember when national magazines ran cover stories on it. I can remember when it supplanted Top Gun as the best...movie...ever in the fickle minds of many members of my senior class in high school. And I can remember when it received six--six!--Oscar nominations, resulting in its being mentioned in the same breath as The Last Emperor and Hope and Glory, two movies that are actually, you know, good. Having seen the movie back in the day, I simply didn’t get it.

Fatal Attraction is a good non-think suspense flick at best, an incredibly stupid one at worst. (And despite the fact it seemed shocking, daring, and fresh to so many people, it won’t fool anyone who’s seen Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me.) It’s really little more than a classier version of one of those erotic thrillers that dominated Cinemax back in the ‘90s--somewhat elevated by a better script, a terrific cast, and a director who once again proves that as long as he’s not concerned with billowing curtains and slow-moving fans, he can actually tell a story. But by no means is it any sort of cinematic landmark.  

If you can work your way around the unlikely notion that a man married to Anne Archer would stray, the first two acts of Fatal Attraction work as a story of a stupid man who does a stupid thing and begins to pay for it. James Dearden’s script (which was doctored by an uncredited Nicholas Meyer) is at its best when it focuses on the more mundane aspects of its characters lives; despite Lyne’s predilection for vertical sex, a couple of lapses in logic (do slashed wrists really heal that fast?), and some terribly silly armchair psychology (here’s as deep as the movie gets when it comes to probing Alex’s psyche: she’s nuts), the first hour or so works as a pretty good domestic drama in which the domesticity goes wrong. But as the movie starts edging into the realm of out-and-out thriller, the stress cracks begin to show.       

And then you have the final act, which is just stupid, stupid, stupid. I simply cannot understand how anyone can see that boiled bunny and not break down laughing. The same goes for the completely nonsensical scene of Alex and the Gallaghers’ young daughter on the roller coaster. (It’s never explained how Alex so easily manages to walk out of the school with someone else’s child. And where’s the “You must be this tall to ride this ride” sign?)

As for the ending, which replaced a more, for lack of a better word, European take on events (one which didn’t sit well with preview audiences), well, its Diabolique-meets-Dirty Harry vibe is one of the most addlebrained, crass, obvious, and ridiculous examples of pandering to an audience you’ll ever see.

Okay, so everyone (well, everyone except Close) thought the movie needed to go out on a bigger note. But did everyone (again, everyone except Close) think the movie should end in the dumbest, basest way possible? And did everyone also think they could present such an ending and then in no way whatsoever deal with its consequences?

Despite the fact it borrows one of horror cinema’s most junky clichés in its last few minutes, this isn’t a junky horror flick we’re dealing with here. You can’t present what happens in the final moments of this movie and then completely ignore the aftermath. It may have satisfied a lot of people--or maybe they simply didn’t care--but I think the movie’s final scene is a huge copout.     

THE VIDEO

This disc’s 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC--looks good, but the photographic style employed by Lyne and cinematographer Howard Atherton creates problems the encoding cannot surmount.

The image is slightly soft, and while he doesn’t go overboard with it, Lyne’s love of smoke and fog gives rise to some (expected) noise. Blacks are wildly uneven, looking quite good at times and very poor at others; key components of the image are also lost in deep shadows at times.

Fine detail can be impressive, although more often than not the inherent softness compromises clarity and sharpness. Colors hold up well, although the red accents Lyne loves so much do bleed quite a bit.    

THE AUDIO

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio is another repurposed stereo track masquerading as a surround mix. It hasn’t been repurposed to a great degree, though, which is actually a plus. The sound remains locked to the front half of the soundstage, meaning you get a fat sound instead of a thin one. Dialogue sounds good, as does Maurice Jarre’s score (not his best work, but it gets a good presentation). The low end doesn’t come into play much, but that’s not surprising.

French 2.0 Dolby Surround and Spanish mono tracks are also included. English, English SDH, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

With two exceptions, the extras here (which have been culled from the 2002 DVD) are presented in standard definition video.

The commentary by Adrian Lyne is a pretty good track, covering a lot of bases and benefitting from what at the time of its recording would have been roughly fifteen years of perspective, but it’s awfully spotty.

Forever Fatal: Remembering Fatal Attraction (28 minutes) is a standard retrospective featurette. There’s nothing here you probably haven’t already heard before, although it is funny to hear the participants spend ten minutes praising Dearden (who chose not to participate) before attempting to justify tossing his work in favor of the new ending.

Social Attraction: The Cultural Phenomenon of Fatal Attraction (10 minutes) explores why the movie became such a hit and topic of discussion. 

Visual Attraction (19 minutes) covers the movie’s makeup, costuming, production design, and cinematography.

Rehearsal Footage (7 minutes) is some videotaped footage of Close and Douglas rehearsing a couple of scenes.

The original ending (12 minutes, HD) has also been included. It’s rather silly, doesn’t make a whole of sense (the cops in charge of the investigation must have slept through all of their forensics classes), and somehow manages to jerk itself to a halt just as it’s getting started. In other words, nobody knew how to end the movie. (Despite this, the original ending still would have made a better fit, as the first two acts spend an inordinate amount of time setting it up.)

Closing out the extras is the movie’s theatrical trailer, which is also presented in high-def.

FINAL THOUGHT

Fatal Attraction is so overrated it’s pathetic, but I can’t deny that parts of it work.