The Reflection of Fatal Attraction

Fatal Attraction (1987) is not quite called a very classic thriller, but it certainly frightened large numbers of people in 1987. This movie describes that a man, a New York attorney, has a tryst with a seductive woman when his wife is away; later, the man ignores the affair, thinking it is just a mistake and it is over. However, the woman won’t just let it go, and she wants him to pay for their affair, destroying his family to keep him. Being a first successful film putting the crisis of the extramarital relation on the silver screen, it presents the sex abuse, the collapse of the traditional American family, and other societal issues in 1980s. Even though there are plenty of similar genres of film popping up after it, Fatal Attraction is only one which can give the spectators such real and drastic trepidation.
Adrian Lyne, the director, is interested in the subject of abnormal relationship between man and woman, from the instant love in 9 & 1/2 (1968), the trial of a true love in Indecent Proposal (1993), the forbidden romance with minor in Lolita (1997), to the adulterous fling in Unfaithful (2002). Even if he is fond of using such banned love and obscene image to crash the audience’s ethical concepts, portraying the meanings from films are not as risqué as the faces are, including Fatal Attraction.
There are barefaced sex scenes and perverted affair plot in Fatal Attraction, but the movie spends more time on illustrating the painful sacrifice after the carnal fling to warn the married playboys in the world. The film specifically shows a man who betrays the marriage may get a serious result, giving a lesson to people living in the tone of rotten society and in the crumbled marriage system, reminding us do not over swell our sexual desire; otherwise, it will kill our family and the fundamental mortality.
The writer of the play and the director are so delicate to present the every detailed point in the whole affair from the beginning to the end. The story begins with a romantic encounter and a poignant passion; then their biases to relationship between them appear. The man wants to quit the disloyal behavior, and on the other hand the woman is not willing to end their relation, so it turns into a nonstop cheating and a mean annoying. This relationship is starting to hurt the man’s family; therefore the man tries to negotiate with the woman, even confessing to his wife, but the woman never lets it go… The meticulous plots are very nifty, making the film so close to the audience’s mental idea. Besides, the deep portraying of the relationship between characters also helps the film to expand the issue of the extramarital relation, letting us feel the hurt from the affair to every main character.
Adrian Lyne incubates a panic atmosphere in the final part of Fatal Attraction, especially the acting of Glenn Close playing the bunny boiler in so different conditions when attractive in the first part and hysterical in final. Yet, it also becomes controversial because the impact of complex moral issue suddenly turns into a straightforward thriller genre. It is a little bit irresponsible.
The way by exaggerating the woman’s harassing behaviors in the movie seems to help the man to get out of his responsibility for this affair, so the film exudes the smell of chauvinistic perspective. In fact, there was a primary version of ending which was more controversial, and in the advance screening the spectators were dissatisfied with it; the director gives way because of the conservative taste of the mainstream in 1980s, changing and re-shooting the ending. It shows that most people want to see the intruder of a marriage is destroyed rather than she destroys the family. Thus, Fatal Attraction reflects not only the terrified moral issue in the story but the hidebound mindset in real society as well.