One of the more popular and provocative shock (shlock?) thrillers at the time was also one of the more effective arguments against infidelity, up to a point. The living nightmare of an otherwise happily married lawyer following his illicit one night stand with a lonely young woman is every adulterer's worst dream of deception and exposure, and for maybe two-thirds of the film the plot is genuinely gripping and even psychologically sound. But the interesting reversal of assumptions (with irresponsible husband Michael Douglas becoming a victim of female aggression) is lost in the contrived climactic bloodbath, during which jilted lover Glenn Close is transformed from a bitter, neurotic woman into a psychotic she-devil (her loft is even located above what looks like a slaughterhouse). Alfred Hitchcock would have blanched at the bathtub finale, with its knives and guns and cheap thrill scare tactics, but let's face it: the film never intended to go anywhere else.
Review of Fatal Attraction
