Word: alex
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ending works, though, not only as a jolt for the audience but also in resolving the drama on its own perfervid terms. Once Alex, the nightmare shrew, has threatened the dream family, she must be faced down by the family. Once Dan has sinned, only Beth can forgive him, by saving his life. Once Alex has invaded the home, she must be killed by the homemaker; the Wife must destroy the Other Woman...
...least not the John Wayne movie man. He is a soft guy in a tough spot. Even after Alex boils Ellen's pet rabbit on the country cottage stove, Dan cannot inform Beth that he and Alex were lovers; Beth has to elicit the fact by asking him directly. The women have the cojones in this picture. It is Beth who will earn the movie's first cheer when she tells Alex, "If you ever come near my family again, I'll kill you, you understand?" And Alex who will take Beth up on her dare, swiping Ellen from school...
Back in the cottage, while Dan makes tea downstairs, Beth prepares her bath. With her robe she erases steam from the bathroom mirror. Alex is standing behind her, carrying a knife. Softly, she asks Beth, "What are you doing here?" In her frayed mind she may already be Mrs. Dan Gallagher, her hubby in the kitchen, their imminent child asleep in her womb. Who is this presumptuous intruder in Alex's dream cottage? Someone who doesn't deserve to play happy family. Someone who deserves to die. Their struggle for the knife finally alerts Dan, who rushes upstairs, overpowers Alex...
Last spring Paramount sneaked Fatal Attraction to preview audiences. Their response was positive except for the ending. In that version, Alex committed suicide to the strains of Madame Butterfly and left Dan's fingerprints on the knife, thus framing him as her murderer. Ironic, Hitchcockian, certainly fatalistic and pretty darned Japanese -- but not satisfying. Says Lyne: "It was like having two hours of foreplay and no orgasm...
...filmmakers tried for something more crimson. "We sat in a room for four days," recalls Dearden. "Obviously the present ending makes Alex a complete psycho. It works well as a piece of cinema but makes her less authentic." In July they were back in Mount Kisco, N.Y., for reshooting. Dearden wrote the new ending, "because I wanted to maintain some degree of influence over it." (The original ending may be used when Fatal Attraction is released in Japan next year...