Fatal Attraction - Honey Azh

Fatal attraction is a thriller made in 1987 about a married man and lawyer Dan Callagher who has a weekend affair with his colleague Alex. However, Alex refuses to allow it to end and then becomes obsessed with him stopping at nothing to have him all to herself. The film is set in the city of New York. The main characters in this film are Michael Douglas as Dan Gallagher, Glen Close as Alex Forrest and Anne Archer as Beth Gallagher.

The genre of this film is a thriller. Thrillers and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable, categories with similar characteristics and features. The mood throughout this film is very typical of this thriller genre as high suspense is used throughout the narrative keeping the audience on the edge of their seat from start to finish, this again is typical of a genre as the audience are always kept thinking about what will happen next. However this film is not as many typical thrillers are set in the dark of the night it perhaps makes it a bit of an unconventional thriller, as it is mostly set in daylight which connotes that the fear for the audience would come from something else. This links to the setting as the film it is not typically set somewhere unordinary or with a mysterious background yet just in a commonplace in the city of New York.

The characters in Fatal Attraction are considerably typical of a thriller, in particular one main character and that is Alex. Alex in particular fits the thriller genre is because is she hugely twisted and clearly has many issue that lead her to perform unusual actions that highlight the fact this is a thriller. Therefore Alex is clearly the antagonist as she has a single minded goal to achieve exactly what she wants, and that is Dan to herself. The protagonist in this film is Beth as she through no fault of her own is drawn into this situation however ironically Beth is the one who commits the worst sin of all, by killing Alex in the end to save her family.

The camera shots in this film help to add to the sense that this is a thriller film, for example the camera work used when Beth is walking towards the cooker in which the rabbit is inside building. However the audience do not know that it is a rabbit there, so there is a sense of suspicion and tension created. The camera work shows her walking slowly towards the cooker with the camera constantly moving from her face to the cooker. Reactions shots are used frequently to show her response of finding her daughters rabbit boiled on the cooker; this look of shock is being shown. This connects and portrays the fact that this is a thriller film as it is clearly thrilling the audience, through the camera work and sound. Also another significant use of the camera work is while Beth is running looking for her daughter from the school and in the house all we see is the angle from right behind her, the camera is following her from being again with the sound building faster and faster, perhaps indicating the fact the mood is getting tenser and something has happened or is about to happen, highlighting suspense at this stage. This of course represents that this is a thriller and something vital is inevitable at this stage. An additional use of camera work that is significant and adds to the thriller genre is when Beth and Alex are both in the apartment in the bathroom the mood builds as well as the tension from the very first minute for example when she is wiping the steam off the mirror we see the reflection of Alex, from this point the sound was rising as well as the thrills, and the camera work shows constant reaction shots of the emotions of both Beth and Alex while Alex has a knife is her hand pointing at Beth. There is a clear link between the steam from the bath and also the steam from the kettle, which helps build tension in the scene. This contributes to the thriller genre as not only is it violet but it is also twisted and provides many shocks to the audience through what Alex is doing.

The sound used in Fatal Attraction plays a major role in defining the genre. This is because whenever something gripping happens the music background sound used in the film gets faster and louder. This is represented when Alex and Beth are in the backroom and suddenly we see Alex’s face through the mirror, the sound then gets louder and builds faster and faster. This represents the fact that it is a thriller and excites and thrills the audience as they wait to find out what will happen next. There was also the noise of the bath in the bathroom scene, the noise was loud which could have given the audience a sneak preview of what they were about to see would be shocking. This is ironic because as well as the bath the kettle was also very loud while boiling which connotes the tension in this scene. The director uses this technique to enable Fatal Attraction to be a thriller and target their audience.

Finally, what is clear from watching Fatal Attraction is that it is a thriller film with any conventional features of thrillers. This is apparent as it ticks many of the boxes for a conventional thriller. I in particular very much enjoyed this film and feel that anyone who enjoys thrillers would also enjoy watching this film, and understanding the story behind it. I also feel that it perhaps has an underlying meaning, which I feel is the devil will always fail. This is due to the fact that in the end the antagonist does not succeed, and therefore Alex dies. I feel that Fatal Attraction is written from a feminist point of view this is because arguably Alex is representing and standing up for the women who were often unheard. This is shown when Alex says to Dan ‘you think you can just use me and then I’ll just go away’ speaking on their affair conveying that fact that Dan has used her and then expected her to stay quiet and not bothered him or come after him again. This therefore is the reason I feel fatal Attraction is from a women point of view as she will not just sit back but women will fight for what they want. This is also shown from Beth point of view when she says to Alex ‘If you come near my family again, I’ll kill you’ and then Beth did eventually kill her. This is show from a feminist’s point of view that women will do the impossible to get want they want, this use to be unusual for women as they were only to be seen but not heard. This could be the reason why it is written from a feminist point of view, to give those women a voice.