Watching Fatal Attraction is like observing cinema blithely mutilating itself. Something that begins as an adult, psychological problem film splinters into glittering, schlocky shock effects, few of which make elementary sense, and many of which are stolen from earlier, better movies.
Adrian Lyne, the director, or footbinder, of the film, is one of those hotshots out of British TV commercials, like the Scott brothers, with a wealth of technical knowhow, some low-level intelligence or high-level cunning, and a cavalier contempt for integrity. There could hardly have been more dishonest movies than Flashdance and 9½ Weeks, the latter about a sadomasochistic relationship with S and M excised from its alphabet, partly because feminists at exploratory advance screenings screamed bloody murder. Trashy though it is, Fatal Attraction had a rather more compelling
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