Home » Fatal Attraction's Muddled Message Highlights the Core of Issues Assailing Any Relationship

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When Fatal Attraction hit the silver screen I was just three years old so I sort of missed the zeitgeist it captured which won it six Oscar nominations, four wins and 14 other nominations. I am not going to turn film critic here not least because I really like both Michael Douglas and Glen Close as an actress and their performance was nothing less than electric, but I do have some serious issues with the entire message it's trying to project. 

I mean, let's look at this a little coldly, our particular affection for the individual actors and their performances put firmly to one side, and see if we can understand what its trying to project. Michael Douglas character is a successful lawyer with a hot wife, a great kind and a successful career. So, why would he then go ahead and have an opportunistic weekend-long affair with Glen Close? Is it because: 

1. She looks hot, fun and available?

2. He wants to experience again what it's like to be a bachelor without the loneliness and sense of failure which sometimes accompanies this role?

3. His wife and him did not have sex the night before she left to go and see her parents?

4. He has some commitment issues which are unresolved and brought to the fore by his impending house move and larger mortgage commitment?

5. He wants to feel again like a man whom women want rather than a husband and a father?

The point is that whichever of these you decide is at the heart of the issue, and there could be more than just one of them, it reflects so badly upon men that if we take it at face value well have no choice other than to think that no man ever deserves to have a faithful wife or deserve a modicum of trust in his relationship. 

If, for instance, as Fatal Attraction seems to suggest all thats required for a man to stray is the opportunity provided by his wife and family being away and a sexy blonde throwing herself at him then we have a serious problem in our society. Of course, Fatal Attraction explores more than this. It appealed to women because they were fascinated with the way their worst nightmare can come true and it appealed to men because here they sympathized with a great guy who made a small mistake and suddenly had to pay a hefty price for it. 

In terms of this it is a cleverly concocted piece of cinema aimed squarely at the unvoiced concerns of its target audience and the box office appeal speaks of the success of its targeting. The on-screen cavorting of Michael Douglas and Glen Close did not help viewing figures either though by today's standards these are positively tame. 

My personal sympathies lie with Glen Closes character. "How come all the good guys are married?" she asks of Michael Douglas who looks bemused, unable to reply. To my mind she echoes the woman on the edge, her biological clock ticking and her focus changing from building a successful career to finding someone to share her life with and getting tired of those who are willing to take advantage for their own pleasure and refuse to give anything back. 

Friends I mention this to are horrified. To most women she represents the horrifying archetype of 'the other woman,' the temptress, the marriage-wrecker, the husband-stealer, but I see that it takes two to tango in this dance and the man's part is crucial to it happening. That married women are so quick to close ranks is suggestive of the insecurity of marriage and the need to reaffirm, to the minds of many, that husbands who stray may be idiots who think with what's in their pants first but eventually will come to their sense and go back to where things are really good for them. Yet in the film itself the script shows intelligence beyond its requirements. To Michael Douglas' assertion that he is happily married and feels lucky, for instance, Glen Closes character asks: "So what are you doing here with me?". To me that is the entire point at the heart of the film and the question we really need to answer. 

If he is there, there clearly has to be a reason which goes beyond his need to lose some sperm. And if that's the case then Glen Closes character has a right to expect more and, quite rightly, also feels deeply misled and angry. What happens next of course takes the development arc of this psychological thriller into the inevitable Hollywood territory of the action drama and here the message becomes even more fudged because the issues of threat and survival tend to be black and white and devoid of the different shades of meaning usually found in moral overtones. That, however, is Hollywood and the imperatives of box office success. We, as intelligent viewers, ought to be able to get past the artifice and tap into the substance lying beneath. 

That the film was such a huge hit suggests it touched a nerve somewhere. Guys saw it and thought, women saw it and felt. The happy ending which brought a family which had been torn apart by a guys stupidity, back together again is here incidental. What made the film work was the fact that both men and women were able to successfully project themselves in the roles of Michael Douglas and his on-screen wife, Anne Archer, and really think the unthinkable what-if which they had never openly think about. 

In this coyness we see the issues lying at the heart of many relationships. We get together with someone, begin to forge a life together and we become content in reacting to the circumstances we face rather than take real stock of where we are, understand why and work to make it as fulfilling as possible as the only sound way to forge ahead. Until we actually understand this and begin to take full responsibility for our actions in a relationship we will be trapped in the role of the viewer in Fatal Attraction, fascinated by the scenario they watch on-screen, unable to resolve the issues which have been stirred up inside them and rooting for Anne Archer as she provides final closure for herself and her husband, saving the day and keeping her family together.