266. Fatal Attraction

Song: Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)

Movie: Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)

Well, that explains Jacob's Ladder! I saw that a long time ago and was surprised by how relentlessly terryfing it was. I felt it was out of character for Adrian Lyne, who seemed to mostly specialise in what you could call elevated sexploitation, not that there is anything wrong with that - I greatly enjoyed Unfaithful and 9 1/2 Weeks! Turns out Fatal Attraction is much more interested in being a thriller, in the most literal sense of the word, and one that would make a great case study in film classes on the use of negative and external spaces. At a certain point you get the sense that there is danger lurking behind every piece of furniture and every corner of the screen. You just admire how much Lyne enjoys playing around with the audience, making ordinary objects and spaces seem ominous by pointing the camera just a fraction too long at them. Often times nothing actually happens, but that misdirection only makes the film more effectivly stressful. You never know what's coming. 

I may have mentioned before here that I am not the biggest fan of Glenn Close, which doesn't even have that much to do with her acting choices. I think her natural disposition just makes every single character she plays more dour and pitiful by default. That makes her a rather perfect fit for this role, in which she plays a steely businesswoman who is barely able to hold together her professional demeanor in public. Her playful flirty confidence is a front for a lonely woman with fear of abandonment who is unable to make meaningful connections to people. It's quite fitting that while she works for the kind of Manhattan corporation that was the symbol of victory in the 1980's, she lives in an apartment in a questionable meat district. Lyne shoots this place as if he wants to reference every single experssionistic horror film he's seen, and fills it with burning fires, in case you don't get the metaphor that it is hell. There is nothing wrong with good pulp, and Fatal Atraction is really good pulp. 

Apparently many of the actors were disappointed by the decision to change the ending of the film. In the original ending Glenn Close, who spends most of the film stalking Michael Douglas and his family after a one-night stand, claiming she is carrying his child, would have commited suicide staged in such a way to succesfully frame Douglas as the killer. That ending was deemed too bleak by test audiences, so it was reshot, leading to a deliciously over the top climax that kills Glenn Close. Goes to show that sometimes the commercial choice is also the correct artistic one. Because it would be a betrayal of Close' performance to have her 'win'. The whole point of her character is that all her actions are essentially a powerless cry for meaningfullness, and a futile attempt to be the kind of woman she presents hersefl to be, and her peers expect her to be. From that perspective, the current ending is also far bleaker than the original one.