It’s hard for me to pick a favorite movie. There are actually about three or four that are tied for first place. The one I pick for today is a part of that first-place tie: FATAL ATTRACTION.
When Fatal Attraction dropped in 1987, I was all of 15. A few years later, I watched it, and I was hooked. Over the last 20+ years, I’ve watched the movie several times a year, and there are some moments when I’m watching it every day. It has become the background noise while I write or grade. A few years ago, when I was teaching the screenwriting portion of a Writing for Radio/TV class, I used Fatal Attraction to talk about acts and structure. Granted, my students were probably thinking, “What movie is Grandma talking about?” I was, however, very amped as I talked about Fatal Attraction, so I’m sure some of the students went to check it out.
Why is Fatal Attraction one of my top fave movies? I dare you to find a character that goes from confident and sassy to ape shit crazy as quickly as Glenn Close’s character does. Even as a youngen, I could see the complexity in her character and how much she fronted with the confident, sassy, do what I want personality and hid that part of her that revealed her sad, depressed, clingy, psychotic personality. I also dig the wife’s character, particularly at the end. She was so meek and sweet throughout the majority of that movie, but halfway through, when she learns about the infidelity and all the crazy mess the mistress has been doing, she’s quick to tell ol’ girl she’ll kill her if necessary. And well, the ending proved she wasn’t joking. Another thing I love about Fatal Attraction is the complexity of the story. I mean it seems simple, right–loving couple, man cheats, all hell breaks loose, but for me it was deeper because I could not automatically hate Michael Douglas’ character. And that’s a testament to how they set up the movie because we get to see how much he DOES love his wife and how one moment in time, one stroking of the ego out of the blue could lead to a moment that destroys your world. I actually felt kind of bad for his character, and for people who know how I feel about cheating, you know that’s saying a LOT.
One thing I don’t like about the movie–the wife having to be the one to “get the job done” at the end. That whole cheating situation was not her job to conclude–it was his. For years, I’ve thought about what the day after this movie is like for both characters. The couple hug at the end of the movie, but over time, I see an awful lot of resentment and anger on her part and a whole heaping of kissing ass on his part. And none of that would even guarantee they would stay together.
See me…going on and thinking about the characters after the credits are done? Yeah, that to me is another reason I love this movie…I care enough about the characters to think about them beyond the movie moment.
