Fatal Attraction Review: Series Remains A Pleasant And In Its Own Way Engaging Vision Which
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Lizzy Caplan, Alyssa Jirrels
Creators: Kevin J. Hynes, Alexandra Cunningham
Streaming Platform: Paramount+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Fatal Attraction review: The new series arrives streaming on Paramount+ with Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan in the lead roles. The TV series we tell you about in the Fatal Attraction review, streaming on Paramount+ from May 1st (with the first three episodes and then with episodes every week), begins unexpectedly. It begins after the end of the story we know and saw in the cinema in the eighties. It starts after an assassination. And the protagonist is an aged, tired man with a long beard. He’s in jail and before a jury for a hearing. He wants to say why he killed that woman. He has a grown-up daughter who goes to the analyst, to whom he had told that her father had died. But now that she’s about to leave, she’s getting closer to him and she’s taking an interest in her case. Years have passed since the facts we know.
This is the main novelty of a series that takes up a historical film and reinterprets it, but more than anything else it aims to take time, to lengthen the story’s breath to adapt it to the serial format. But he does it for a story that wouldn’t need it. Within a few years, Lizzy Caplan had the honor of bringing back to the small screen two of perhaps the most iconic and disturbing female characters of cinema at the turn of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s: first Annie Wilkes in the second season of the series Castle Rock, a psychopathic nurse born from the mind of Stephen King and also played by Kathy Bates in the film Misery must not die, and now Alex Forrest in this Paramount+ remake of Fatal Attraction, the very famous 1987 erotic thriller directed by Adrian Lyne (today considered a real cult) in which a superb, incomparable and damned scary Glenn Close brought to life the stalker ready to ruin the life of Michael Douglas.
Fatal Attraction Review: The Story Plot
Dan Gallagher (Joshua Jackson) is a successful lawyer, with a beautiful wife, Beth (Amanda Peet), and a delightful daughter, in a beautiful house in the countryside. The classic perfect, bright, immaculate life. But, even in immaculate things, a stain can happen. And it is the meeting with Alex Forrest (Lizzy Caplan), a charming lawyer. The attraction between the two is felt at first glance, at that first meeting, in court. Dan, so after a few encounters, he lets himself go to her passion with her…
The narrative fabric of the Fatal Attraction series becomes more intricate and articulated than that of the cinematic original, even if the premise is practically the same: an ambitious and charming district attorney named Dan Gallagher (played by Joshua Jackson, Dr. Death ), with his wife and daughter in charge, falls in love with a young woman, Alex Forrest (Caplan), the lawyer for the victim of one of the cases assigned to Dan. What was supposed to be only a one-night stand (or, at most, a weekend), soon turns into a real nightmare; Alex’s obsessive behaviors begin to spiral out of Dan’s control, as the woman… “doesn’t want to be ignored”.
Already from its incipit, the series is totally detached from the film from which it draws inspiration. We are in Los Angeles, nowadays, and Alex Forrest is already dead: it seems that it was Dan who killed her, ready to leave prison after serving 15 years for the murder of her ex-lover. The man pleads guilty only to be released on parole: his goal is to reconcile with his family and, above all, to prove that he didn’t kill Alex. From here, the narrative ceases to proceed in a linear sense. We are catapulted into 2008, to the first meeting between Dan and Alex, practically at the beginning of the nightmare: the past and the present mix, as well as the rhythm, tones, and general direction of the series.
Fatal Attraction Review and Analysis
At the center of the re-reading of Fatal Attraction, there can only be, first of all, the choice of casting. Of course, probably part of the audience who will see this story for the first time will see the characters directly with these faces. But Paramount+ builds on the legacy of a brand that evidently is considered strong (even the graphics of the opening credits recall those of the classic film). And the series will also appeal to audiences who have seen the film. And then the comparison is inevitable. Joshua Jackson, the Pacey Witter of Dawson’s Creek, has grown up, matured, had his breakout role in Fringe, and seems to be comfortable in his role as a good family man, as in Little Fires Everywhere. But he continues to have that easy-going, childish, all too reassuring face. Every time we see him, he always seems like a boy who never grew up, an actor who doesn’t have that sex appeal, that rocky face, like a man who knew how to be tough, that Michael Douglas had. He is certainly a talented actor, but the comparison with Douglas seems rather unequal.
On the other hand, Lizzy Caplan, whom we haven’t seen since the beautiful Masters Of Sex, is a very particular presence. She is brunette, whereas Glenn Close was platinum blonde, a kind of symbol of what could be considered the femme fatale in the eighties. Lizzy Caplan has curly hair and a bob; she is less flashy and much more intriguing. Her gray-green eyes are, as usual, magnetic, and her archaic smile is enigmatic, insinuating. Dressed in a black leather jacket, she is one of those women who doesn’t have to show off to look attractive. Her sex appeal comes out by itself. And, after seeing her in Master of Sex, we know that Lizzy Caplan has plenty of sex appeal. Her Alex of her, compared to the original, seems more romantic, more painful, and more multifaceted. She is measured against a sacred monster like Glenn Close, but in her case, in comparison.
Watching Fatal Attraction, then, another reflection that we don’t usually do often comes spontaneously. Even if we are in the golden age of TV series, in the era of the spasmodic search for content for streaming platforms, it is not said that every film must necessarily turn into a series or generate a series. The story of Fatal Attraction was simple and direct: in the two hours of the movie, it had its full swing, its perfect story arc. The protagonist’s meeting with his lover, the explosion of passion, rejection, retaliation, the escalation of events, and the final confrontation.
The concise tempo of the story gave tension and anxiety. The directions underlined all this with perfect shots: think of the famous scene in the mirror with steam and you’ll understand what we’re talking about. In the Fatal Attraction series, it seems to us that the script revolves around the main facts, trying to buy time, trying to expand the story, and lengthening it, to reach the format of 10 episodes. The betrayal also changes, which, compared to the original, occurs more times, and seems to suggest a relationship rather than a one-night stand. Looking at a story like that of Fatal Attraction, however, we know what we are going to see and expect the key moments, the most spectacular, the most exciting. And the longer times seem to make the story lose pace.
The fact that somehow the story is a simple remake, or almost, doesn’t help. Because the serial expansions of the films have often had a particular angle: they have been prequels, sequels, and requels, they have moved the story on a single character in particular. In this sense, Fatal Attraction tries not to be a simple repetition of the film’s facts. There is an attempt, and it is the idea of seeing the story ex-post, after the death of a character and the condemnation of another. So, there is another storyline, linked to the present time, next to the main storyline, which we experience as a long flashback. Which carries in itself a sort of mystery, of detection. Why, if at that hearing for probation, Dan had told the magistrates that he had decided to “take life” to the victim, once he confesses to his daughter that it wasn’t him? This ” after “, this frame that is added to the main story, together with the figure of her daughter Ellen when she grows up (Alyssa Jirrels), in fact, a new character, gives the series something more. But that is probably not enough. Fatal Attraction, in TV series format, is pleasant but doesn’t add much to Adrian Lyne’s historic film.
If at the beginning the point of view is that of Dan, suddenly the focus shifts from him to Alex. In this new Fatal Attraction, we are no longer faced with the deranged girl with a dark past who becomes obsessed with a married man who desperately tries to get rid of her: the series tells us whom Alex was during her childhood, during the years in which she studied law, also showing us the first months of his move to Los Angeles and revealing how Dan, in reality, has always been much more than a simple desire to satisfy, but rather the pawn on a chessboard that the woman had already started for some time to draw the contours.
Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin J. Hynes, therefore, make Alex an even more fascinating character, clarifying the origin of his psychotic attitudes and providing context for both his thoughts and his motivations. Of course, being able to make Glenn Close’s memorable interpretation forget would be an impossible feat for anyone, but Lizzy Caplan manages to hold up to the comparison admirably, giving us an Alex in some respects very different from the femme fatalism piteous and rebellious who more than thirty years ago disturbed the imagination of all the faithless in the world; undoubtedly endowed with sex appeal and disturbing charm, this new Alex is perhaps more painful, melancholy, wildly romantic than the “monstrous” cinematic counterpart.
The series conceived by Cunningham and Hynes lacks all of this, and certainly, the need to expand and lengthen the story to adapt it to the times of seriality has played an important weight, making some joints really too twisted and preventing the rhythm from immediately finding its most pressing, dizzying and in a certain sense reassuring peak. However, it cannot be denied that the Fatal Attraction series remains an enjoyable and in its way engaging vision which, unlike the 1987 cult, functions less as a pure erotic thriller interested in unraveling the constitutive ambivalence of Eros ( love) and the bond that connects it to Thanatos(death), much more as a drama on personality disorders, aimed at demonstrating how our past can define, in the present, that undeniable need to be seen and recognized by others.
Fatal Attraction Review: The Last Words
Certainly, the need to expand and lengthen the story to adapt it to the times of seriality has played an important role, making some junctions really too convoluted and preventing the pace from immediately finding its most pressing, dizzying peak and in a certain reassuring sense. However, it cannot be denied that the Fatal Attraction series remains a pleasant and in its own way engaging vision which, unlike the 1987 cult, functions less as a pure erotic thriller interested in unraveling the constitutive ambivalence of Eros (love) and the bond that connects it to Thanatos (death), much more as a drama on personality disorders, aimed at demonstrating how our past can define, in the present, that undeniable need to be seen and recognized by the other.
