Sure, Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson might be steaming it up now with Babygirl, but if you’re looking for a little throwback that’s part psychological, part erotic thriller, look no further than Paramount+, as Fatal Attraction is now streaming. The year was 1987, Michael Douglas was a silver fox and Glenn Close’s shoulder pads exuded enough sensuality to cause a car crash. It was then that filmmaker Adrian Lyne decided the world needed a little more raw eroticism and picked up James Dearden’s feature-length adaptation of his 1980 short, Diversion. What came to follow is one of the most intensely acted, sexually charged, psychological thrillers in cinematic history. Intrigued? You should be.
Dan Gallagher (Douglas) is a man who knows how to get what he wants. One of the most revered lawyers in New York, the attorney is climbing up the ranks at his law firm looking at big things on the horizon. Meanwhile, his home life is as sweet as ever thanks to his loving wife, Beth (Anne Archer), and the couple’s daughter, Ellen (Ellen Hamilton Latzen). But Dan just can’t seem to get out of his own way after he meets a seductive publishing editor named Alex (Close) at a work event. The pair use the time when Dan’s wife and daughter are out of town to engage in a little extra-marital fling – or at least that’s what Dan tells himself. The fling quickly takes a turn for the obsessively unhinged after Alex can’t get enough of her paramore and threatens to bring everything he’s worked for down if he doesn’t share the same feelings.
‘Fatal Attraction’s Sexually Charged Ripple Effect
Audiences couldn’t get enough of the steamy, sensual movie, with Fatal Attraction earning a staggering $320.1 million at the global box office against a $14 million production budget. Even critics were into the film, with the movie bagging six Academy Award nominations, and sitting on Rotten Tomatoes with a Certified Fresh 74% approval rating. The movie also helped usher in a lineup of other similar titles, with the teams behind such productions as Presumed Innocent, Sleeping with the Enemy, and Single White Female seeing Fatal Attraction’s success and going for it in their own thrillingly erotic ways. Most recently, the film spawned a television series, a revamped and modernized version of the tale that starred Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to the same success as the feature and was canceled after just one season.
There’s no arguing that Fatal Attraction is a quintessential piece of late ‘80s film. Head over to Paramount+ to stream it now.