A requirement for marriage
In 1987, Adrian Lyne brought out one of the more horrifying tales of adultery to ever hit the big screen. Michael Douglas plays Dan Gallagher, an attorney in a New York law firm who has an affair with Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest, a newly hired employee. The affair starts as a fling, but Gallagher soon finds out that Alex has a few issues. Wanting to end the affair Gallagher tries his best to leave Alex, but Alex has no intentions of breaking it off. She begins to stalk Gallagher, then the stalking spills over into his family life. Eventually, it all crashes and burns.
To say that this movie ‘scares the shit’ out of men would be a gross understatement. If you showed this film to every man before he got married, I would guarantee you that there would be nearly zero infidelity occurring in marriages. The moments where you start to realize that Alex is leaning from normal to bat-sh*t crazy is intense and frightening to watch. Close takes crazy to an entirely new level; people in similar situations in movies have not achieved that bar of psycho. While Douglas surely does bring a strong, man presence to the screen, it’s easy to say that Glenn Close made this movie work. Her coy smile and devilish intentions certainly should put a chill down anyone’s spine. Her transgression and inability to cut herself off from the affair is probably more frightening than the way she manipulates Douglas’ character into staying in the relationship.
In other words, she covers all bases when it comes to playing Alex.
If you’re looking for a deeper meaning than simply an affair going wrong, then you should consider that the 80s were mainly a decade run by men. While that isn’t the biggest revelation in the world, you should also know that most men really didn’t worry about the consequences of their actions, even outside of affairs. You had the rich getting richer and feeling good about themselves with complete disregard to the other side of the coin. So, in a sense, this movie really defined the end of the decade as these type of folks were slowing realizing that consequences existed and their world was about to be shaken; see the 1987 stock market crash for details. What Lyne put together was a wonderful mirror image of the changing times. He clearly stated that you should be comfortable in your environment, but you should consider every path you take before you walk down it. The frivolous disregard for one’s one preservation and the preservation of one’s life in general is something you can’t simply play around with. Lyne’s movie has always been remembered as a warning in that time period, but it certainly should be a warning for future generations (especially when you’re getting married).
Little blue about the Blu-ray
While most Blu-rays tend to shine in the HD format, this faltered a bit. There were grainy elements of the picture, especially during the dimmer, darker shots at night. While certainly better then the DVD version, the Blu-ray was slightly disappointing because of the grainy elements. The sound was remastered beautifully though, which I can’t really complain about. in the end, I’ve witnessed better Blu-rays in my day, but it’s certainly still somewhat sharp in comparison to the DVD.
As for features, where’s what you’re looking at:
– Commentary by Adrian Lyne
– Forever Fatal: Remembering Fatal Attraction
– Social Attraction – The Cultural Phenomenon of Fatal Attraction
– Visual Attraction – Behind-the-Scenes Production
– Rehearsal Footage
– Alternate Ending with intro by Adrian Lyne (HD)
– Original Theatrical trailer (HD)
I’m certainly impressed with what they have here, but I would have liked to see more of this in HD. Still, you’ll get some wonderful commentary, a questionable alternate ending and good featurettes. Can’t really complain a lot.