The highest-grossing film of 1987 worldwide, the original “Fatal Attraction” served as a cautionary tale against accidental infidelity, showing how even a seemingly innocuous fling can end someone’s whole life. Is. Lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) has a whirlwind weekend affair with publishing executive Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), which is derailed in the most horrific way imaginable when she becomes obsessed with him. , causing his entire family to be in trouble. (Close says people told him years later that the film saved his marriage.)
In a TV landscape overrun with prequels, sequels and reboots, the source material for Paramount Plus’ new “Fatal Attraction” series proves surprisingly fertile. The show’s eight episodes provide plenty of time for the story to expand past paranoia, and the more interesting question is why Alex Forrest became so obsessed in the first place — not to mention that Dan, apparently A happy family man, loyally clashed so easily. (For more on the basics, we highly recommend Katrina Longworth’s “You Must Remember This” podcast episode, which focuses on “Fatal Attraction” from her “Erotic ’80s” series.)
It helps that the 2023 edition includes several inspired twists: a shifting of coasts (LA replaces New York) and a change of business location. Dan (Joshua Jackson) is now an assistant district attorney, which puts him in a very difficult position when he is accused of murdering Alex. Alex (Lizzy Caplan) is a victim advocate in her office, a surprisingly effective position for someone who’s been so traumatized herself. Even more valuable: While the original film has been called out for being anti-feminist, as Alex is a high-powered professional woman who turns on a man, while Dan basically gets off scot-free, This shows more even-numbered variant contribution factors and results on both sides.
Like the original, the new “Fatal Attraction” benefits greatly from its cast. Jackson followed up her impressive years-long turn in Showtime’s “The Affair” with another role featuring different timelines and infidelities. Like that series, “Fatal Attraction” is centered around a murder mystery – inspired by the original ending of the film. In that version, Alex Forrest, spurred on by his girlfriend “Madame Butterfly”, dies by suicide and frames Dan for her murder (in the final film, of course, Dan’s wife Beth is murdered by Alex in his own right). is going to save the family.)
In this version, Dan has recently been paroled after being convicted of Alex’s murder, while repeated flashbacks reveal the pair’s affair and its disastrous consequences 15 years earlier. Jackson deftly swings between the full-on himself, the grandiose, first-fall Dan, and the humble, shady version of himself after prison. Like Anne Archer before her, Amanda Peet makes the most of what may be a thankless role — errant wife (especially in light of her commanding performance as real-life obsessive Betty Braddock in 2020’s “Dirty John”). In both timelines, Beth strives to do the right thing even as her world falls apart – focusing most of all on her daughter.
The series uses a modern-day Ellen (Alyssa Zirels) to solidify the foundation of the “Fatal Attraction” legacy. Dan and Beth’s daughter is now in college, where she is writing a thesis on Carl Jung and his mistress/colleague Toni Wolff’s four classifications of the female psyche. Alex, we soon conclude, is the overly intuitive and emotional medial (Beth is the mother, obviously). And each of these, Wolff points out, also had a shadow side, a Jungian concept Allen often brings up—which makes sense for someone whose father was both a devoted family man and an accused murderer.
The Shadow concept also gives more depth to the exploration of Alex Forrest the way she was. Taking on another iconic villain origin story (after Annie Wilkes in 2019’s Stephen King-based series “Castle Rock”), Caplan has the breadth to bring that trauma to the forefront. Alex’s obsession makes a lot more sense when we see that Dan isn’t the first person she’s become infatuated with, or that what’s happened in her past (her own family relationships, her own therapy sessions) would indicate that. His attention will be focused on her. undone.
Caplan not only telegraphs Alex’s pain effectively, he’s able to portray the character in a sympathetic light, even though he’s committed even worse misdeeds than the cinematic version — and that Alex, as we Everyone knows, there was a bunny-boiler.
There are many callbacks to the original, some obvious (the problematic combination of nitric acid and cars), some so subtle you might miss them entirely – like a brief conversation about the number of crimes committed in a bathtub. These cues have the effect of paying homage to, rather than leaching off, the original; For example, there Is A bunny, but it belongs to Alex’s sympathetic neighbor (“ET” Mom Dee Wallace Stone). And if you’ve seen the trailer, you know the line “I’m not going to be IgnoredDan” is still as chilling as it was in 1987.
Dan adamantly maintains that he is innocent of Alex’s murder, but is he telling the truth? And if Dan didn’t kill her, who possibly could? Or has Alex’s original intention for 1987 come true? The puzzle at the center of this “Fatal Attraction” makes for captivating, binge-worthy viewing, despite the fact that the pacing can be clunky, spread over eight episodes that might have been six; Sometimes we are reduced to figuring out what year we’re in based on Jackson’s hairstyle and wardrobe. The plot also takes some unfortunate turns towards the end that threaten to derail the reasons why we were there in the first place.
But when all else fails, the performances of the key players fill the gaps. The chemistry between Caplan and Jackson is so compelling, it’s easy to see why Alex was able to convince herself that their relationship was real. (It’s also a shame that their scenes together are cut short as Alex and Dan go from lovers to adversaries.) Toby Huss is a welcome addition as Mickey, Dan’s only former colleague who believes he Telling the truth, as the pair happily try to solve a 15-year-old murder in order to finally prove their innocence.
Because we know what Alex Forrest is capable of, the tension rises stealthily throughout the series as she becomes more unbalanced and more revelations peel back the layers of her enigmatic history. Because thanks to this new “Fatal Attraction,” we now know Why Alex did what he did – which is even more interesting than how he did it.
Fatal Attraction premieres Sunday, April 30 on Paramount+.