“Bring the dog, I love animals…I’m a great cook”

     If any guy out there is thinking of cheating on his wife, and needs something to steer him back onto the straight and narrow, there’s no doubt that Fatal Attraction could scare any potential philanderer straight, and quick.  The scary thing is not the possibility that the woman with whom you have the affair could be a homicidal maniac, but rather that she could just be a plain old, ordinary maniac.  And for much of Fatal Attraction Glenn Close appears to be a regular, if entirely off-balance maniac.  There are women out there like this.  Don’t take the chance.  The ones that are out there are not likely to kill your pets and kidnap your kids.  But they could certainly make things uncomfortable and awful.

     For the better part of the movie, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) seems content to make things uncomfortable and awful.  After Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) engages in an extra-marital affair with Alex while his wife Beth (Anne Archer) is out of town.  She certainly paints the affair as one that will be just a weekend fling.  At least at first.  Then she goes from clingy to annoying to creepy to downright frightening.  Paramount Home Entertainment releases Fatal Attraction on Blu-Ray June 9th, and I will say right here that a boiled rabbit is twice, maybe three times as creepy and scary in high-definition.

     Movies like this one - and there are a few movies like this one - rely almost entirely on the craziness and acting skills of the leading crazy woman.  Fatal Attraction is certainly better than most of them.  And not just because of Glenn Close, although she is utterly magnificent.  (Witness movies like Mommie Dearest, which utterly wastes one of the great performances in movies by Faye Dunaway by putting her in a truly dreadful movie.)  The fact is, even without Close, Fatal Attraction would be a pretty decent movie.  Just decent, not great.  Close makes it great.

     For some reason in the late 80s, Michael Douglas made a living being stalked by creepy women in film.  Basic Instinct, Disclosure, the list goes on.  Why Michael Douglas, I have no idea.  But he was a reasonably effective foil for maniac women who want to do him bodily harm.  And he’s as good as ever in Fatal Attraction, but this is really Close’s movie.  Her character, Alex Forrest, was named the seventh greatest movie villain of all time in the American Film Institute’s list.  The movie is also rated #28 on the AFI’s Greatest Thrillers list.  And it’s out on Blu-Ray today.  Well worth picking up.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 4:20 pm and is filed under 1987, Anne Archer, Blu Ray, Classic, Drama, Glenn Close, Michael Douglas, Thriller. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.