Fatal Attraction

I only wanted to look at this because I heard about the alternate ending.

Director: Adrian Lyne
Writers: James Dearden (Screenplay and short film)
               
This is a film about a man's "one-night stand" that goes all kinds of wrong and the woman stalks him and his family in an attempt to get him to love her. I put the phrase one-night stand in quotes because this was not a one-night stand, it was an extremely short-lived affair lasting an entire weekend. Whoever keeps saying it was a one-night stand needs to look at how long one night is. Hint: it's not a weekend involving fucking at least 4 times.

Before I get into what I thought of it, shout out to Does the dog die, I saw there was a dog in this very early on and I remembered an animal dies in this. Does the dog die is a site where, if you see an animal in a film and think "is this poor beautiful innocent soul going to die?" You can just type the name of the movie and it tells you whether the dog or any other animal in the feature gets the chop. It's a very helpful site and it helps you to prepare for what may or may not come to pass. I'll leave a link in case you wanna check them out.
https://www.movieswhere.com/topic/detail?topicId=1

So what did I think of this film? I loved it, it was a slow build up to a climax that made my blood feel like it was full of electricity. I love when films do that when they make you feel so tense you feel like your entire body is pulsating with this voltage. I feel like this is the film that also started the trend of the "psycho girlfriend", and while this film clearly shows that it's not going to end well if you become the "psycho girlfriend" but if you look at the shit some girls share and how they behave...I think you could trace it back to this film. Isn't this where the term "bunny boiler" came from too? *hint, that's a clue to something that happens if you've never seen this.*

The sex scenes are interesting, I mean the first time they fuck there's water involved and I just don't get it but I guess people do weird things when they're feeling such passion? Like I don't think I've ever been dry-humped at a sink, turned the tap on and started dripping the water over my partner and in their mouth. Crazy concept to me that. The second time they do it in an elevator, but it's one of those ones where it's not completely blocked off and you can see inside from the outside if you get what I mean? I have no idea what those ones are called but they're cool. Scary as hell, but cool. The third time I think happens off screen and the fourth time is just implied after they've had dinner. If anything, at least it looked like Alex (Glenn Close) got some damn good sex out of it. Like, in a way I can see exactly why she turns a bit crazy. I mean, if she's gotten something like that she probably won't wanna give it up anytime soon.

I also wanna talk about the endings. In the theatrical release, Dan (Michael Douglas) has had enough of Alex's antics and it comes to a head when she takes his daughter for a few hours and his wife ends up in the hospital. He takes his case to the police and they agree to bring Alex in for questioning over the situation, the next day Dan gets a call and it turns out the police went to her house and it appears she's missing so what does he do? Runs his wife an overly filled bath and gets her a cup of tea. Y'know, the safer option. Not like I'd wanna get my wife and kid out of the house if my animal murderer, stalker knew where I lived, and had gone missing. Nah, just run my busted up wife a too full bath. Of course, this backfires because it seems as though Alex has made her way to the house and into the bathroom. She then proceeds to attack Beth (Anne Archer). Dan can't hear the attack because he's boiling the tea kettle on the stove which...I have a whole lot of issues with that already and I don't wanna get too off track with this. So as I said, Dan can't hear the banging and blood-curdling screams coming from his wife and her attacker, his daughter doesn't wake up throughout this also. Eventually, he does hear the commotion once the kettle has stopped kicking off and he makes his way up to the bathroom and drowns Alex, only for her to fake out her own death and Beth shoots her when she rises from her watery bathtub of a pseudo-grave. The child sleeps through the loud ass gunshot too. I call bullshit on that. This ending is good, and I guess was more of a people pleaser but...there's just so many holes like...how did Alex get into the house undetected? Why did Beth leave the bath so fucking full, even before Alex came in that bath was too full and would have spilt onto the floor if she'd gotten into it? Where did the gun that Beth had come from? Why did that child not wake up from her mother screaming, another woman screaming, her father screaming and a gunshot yet somehow wakes up when her mother is mildly kicking off when she's told that Dan cheated on her? I guess this isn't an especially bad ending I mean, it does show how much a man can take when his families life is threatened but this just seems a little too dramatic for the story that came previously.

Now then, the alternate ending is a lot less dramatic. Still a little flawed but a lot better and ties in a lot more. In this version, Alex is already dead. The police show up to Dan's house and gives him the news, bringing a homicide detective with them, Dan, of course, is a little confused because they said it looked like she'd killed herself but the reason this is even considered a homicide case is because of this one line. Quote: "In my experience, a woman who wants to kill herself doesn't cut her throat with a 9" kitchen knife." Which...is a little stupid, Dan had already told the lieutenant that she'd tried to kill herself before but cutting her wrists, what's to say the next logical step would be antagonising a bull to maim herself? Logically, the next step up would be the throat with a knife lying around. Despite how much women like to plan things out but when it comes to suicide the plan to do it is there but how and when generally is on impulse. In my experience and knowledge of the subject at least, correct me if I'm wrong like. So Dan is then arrested on a murder charge and he tells Beth to go inside and call his lawyer, she does go inside and while searching for the phone number she comes across a tape Alex had made for Dan telling him he's a piece of shit and she loves him and doesn't know what she'll do without him. When Beth plays the tape, she hears Alex talk about killing herself if Dan continues to push her away, this is the evidence Dan needs to be cleared of the charges and as Beth gets up and shouts for her daughter to get ready the shot fades into a shot of Alex taking her own life, sitting on the bathroom floor listening to, what I assume is a number from the opera Madam Butterfly. Personally, I feel like this fits with the film better, it's not tense but it's tied into previous events in the film. The tape comes back into play rather than looking like another psychotic antic from Alex, it becomes a useful plot device. Like I said, the theatrical ending works well too considering it was meant to be a bigger final note for audiences at the time to latch onto and remember more. I just prefer the original.

Anyway, that's what I thought of this movie, it's pretty good and I don't know why I'd never seen it before but I guess you just gotta look at something and think, might as well, what could be the worst that can happen. If you've not seen it, you should definitely go and check it out.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support it's creators bu buying the DVD or Bluray.