Fatal Attraction
危険な情事
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A weekend affair and a woman who will not be discarded; the 'bunny boiler' template feminist critics have contested ever since.
Dan Gallagher, a Manhattan lawyer for a publishing house, is happily married to Beth, and they have a young daughter, Ellen. One weekend, while Beth and Ellen are away visiting her parents, he sleeps with Alex Forrest, an editor there, and reluctantly spends the next day with her too. When he tries to leave, she tries to take her own life. He looks after her and goes home in the morning.
Alex will not let it end. She comes to his office to apologise and invites him to Madame Butterfly, her favourite opera; he refuses. She rings so often that he tells his secretary to stop putting her through. Then she tells him she is pregnant and that he must take responsibility. When he changes his home number, she calls on Beth, posing as a buyer for their flat. Dan goes to Alex's flat to confront her, and they fight.
The Gallaghers move to a house in Bedford, outside the city. Alex sends Dan a tape full of abuse, pours acid over his car and follows him home, where the sight of his family through the window makes her sick. The police tell him they can do nothing without probable cause. Then the family comes home to find that Alex has killed Ellen's pet rabbit. Dan confesses everything to Beth, who throws him out; when he rings Alex, Beth takes the phone and tells her she will kill her if she comes near the family again. Alex collects Ellen from school and takes her to an amusement park. Beth, searching frantically, crashes her car and ends up in hospital. Ellen comes home unharmed.
Dan forces his way into Alex's flat and attacks her, stopping just short of killing her; she turns on him, and he overpowers her and leaves. The police begin looking for her. Beth forgives Dan and comes home from hospital. As she runs a bath, Alex appears in the house and attacks her. Dan struggles with Alex until she seems to be dead, but she rises again, and Beth kills her. Dan gives his statement to the police and goes back inside to his wife.
Starring
Michael Douglasas Dan Gallagher
A happily married Manhattan lawyer whose weekend affair with an editor turns into a threat to his wife and daughter.
Dan Gallagher’s story
With Beth and Ellen away for the weekend, Dan sleeps with Alex and stays a second day. When he tries to leave, she tries to take her own life; he looks after her and goes home. Then he tries to shut her out: he turns down the opera, stops taking her calls, changes his home number, and when she says she is pregnant and calls on Beth, he goes to her flat and they fight. In Bedford the police will not act unless he owns up. Only after the rabbit is killed does he confess to Beth, who throws him out. When Alex takes Ellen, he breaks into her flat and nearly kills her. Beth forgives him. When Alex attacks Beth at home, Dan fights her, and Beth kills her. He goes back to his wife.
Glenn Closeas Alex Forrest
An editor at a publishing house who will not accept that the affair is over, and pursues Dan and his family.
Alex Forrest’s story
Alex is an editor Dan meets through work, and after their weekend together she clings to him. When he tries to go, she tries to take her own life. She comes to his office to apologise and asks him to Madame Butterfly; she rings until he stops taking her calls; she tells him she is pregnant and means to keep the baby. She calls on Beth, posing as a buyer, sends Dan a tape of abuse, pours acid on his car and follows him to Bedford, where the sight of his family through the window makes her sick. She kills Ellen's rabbit, collects Ellen from school and takes her to an amusement park. When Dan breaks in and nearly kills her, she turns on him. At last she comes into the house and attacks Beth, and Beth kills her.
Anne Archeras Beth Gallagher
Dan's wife, who learns of the affair only after Alex has reached into her home and her daughter's life.
Beth Gallagher’s story
Beth is away with Ellen, visiting her parents, when Dan's affair begins, and she knows nothing of it. She shows the flat they are selling to a woman who says she wants to buy it, not knowing it is Alex, and the family moves to a house in Bedford. The day they find Ellen's rabbit killed, Dan confesses the affair and the pregnancy, and she orders him out; when he rings Alex, Beth takes the phone and tells her she will kill her if she comes near the family again. Then Ellen is not at school. Searching for her, Beth crashes the car and is taken to hospital. Ellen comes home unharmed, and Beth forgives Dan and comes home. As she runs a bath, Alex appears and attacks her. Dan struggles with Alex, Alex rises again, and Beth kills her.
Why it matters
Fatal Attraction turned a married man's weekend affair into a horror film, and the argument ever since has been about whose horror it is. Dan betrays his wife and wants to walk away; Alex refuses to be walked away from, and the film follows her from a suicide attempt and a pregnancy to stalking, the abduction of a child and an attack in the family home. The ending first filmed, in which Alex took her own life and made it look as if Dan had killed her, was reshot after test audiences rejected it; a version with that ending played in three Tokyo cinemas in 1988. Susan Faludi argued in Backlash that the changes made Alex wholly negative while Dan's carelessness went unexamined, and the screenwriter, James Dearden, later called the theatrical ending sexist. The film was the second-highest-grossing of 1987 in the United States, and it gave English the phrase 'bunny boiler'.