Paramount has ransacked its back catalog to bring a new adaptation of its 1987 erotic thriller “Fatal Attraction“ to streaming. Since “Fatal Attraction” was released, it has become a signature movie in the erotic thriller genre and has faced detractors who point to the movie as a harrowing depiction of anti-feminism. Expanding upon the movie with Michael Douglas and Academy-award-nominated Glenn Close, the new eight-episode series promises a deep dive into the minds of these characters–fleshing them out, examining family dynamics, and investigating our law system. That’s an excellent pitch for the remake of a box-office hit that was nominated for six Oscars, including best picture. The problem is this new “Fatal Attraction” squashes any sense of being the erotic thriller so many husbands were fearful of. Instead, we’re left with a series that tries to diagnose all the principal players with past traumas, confusingly alternating timelines and never letting the audience get swept up in the drama.
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“Fatal Attraction” wastes no time in expanding screenwriter James Dearden’s original, as Daniel Gallager (Joshua Jackson) is in a hearing seeking parole. He’s here after having served 15 years in prison for the murder of Alex Forrest (Lizzy Caplan). During his parole hearing, he admits to feeling remorse over killing Ms. Forrest, but it’s a lie to get out of prison. Dan believes he’s innocent, and he’s going to prove it. Another one of his goals, now he’s out of prison, is reconnecting with his family. His daughter Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels) and his ex-wife Beth (Amanda Peet) have done their best to move on with their lives, but Dan is eager to make up for the lost time.
Simultaneously the series jumps back to 2008 when Dan was the Deputy District Attorney and in line to become a judge. While this will mean a higher stature for Dan, more importantly, he will become a judge faster than his father managed to do it. Unfortunately, he gets word that he’ll have to wait another few years to reach those lofty heights, and he begins to spiral. His ego has taken quite a big hit, so when Alex Forrest comes into his orbit, he feels important again. His relationship with Alex is something that he believes he can control, and that gives him power. What begins as flirting between Dan and Alex, becomes a heated affair. Before it gets too serious, Dan wants to stop, but Alex makes it painfully clear that she wants him, and nothing will stop her.
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In the movie, the characters of Dan and Alex were specifically coded as good vs evil. Alex was this all-encompassing codependent fury to strike fear into audiences. The series tries to bring both characters to a middle ground and fails. On one hand, Dan cheated on his wife, but since he’s spent time in prison, we’re supposed to feel for him. As for Alex, Close’s performance was a stigmatizing depiction of mental illness, and instead, the series makes a point of showing the mental and emotional barriers facing Alex. Caplan excels in developing the mental state of Alex, a woman with a mysterious past who has trouble making relationships with people. While she’s flirting with Dan, she has this overwhelming sense of self-confidence, but when she’s alone, she struggles with doubt and abandonment. Caplan’s captivating performance allows Alex to be a hair-trigger away from spiraling into destructive tendencies, but even with her complications, the script forces Alex too hard into villainy, making it difficult to sympathize with her character.
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Anytime that “Fatal Attraction” flashes forward to the current day, any sense of suspense is gone. Dan and his mentor/friend Mike Gerard (Toby Huss) are looking for possible suspects to reopen his murder trial, but since the element of chaos is removed from the story, what is supposed to be an erotic thriller turns dull. As an adaptation of the movie that categorically defined erotic thrillers, that comes across as sinful. There’s often very little to differentiate these time jumps except that Dan looks disheveled in his current age, making the alternating timelines less of an engaging trick and more like homework to keep track of whose viewpoint we are witnessing the story from. Sometimes those current-day sequences are filled with scenes of Dan’s daughter Ellen as she works with her therapist or how Beth is working with her new husband for their home remodeling business. Little of this engaging as it often feels like bloat for the series’ eight-hour story.
Given Dan’s position in the legal system, “Fatal Attraction” spends time on politics and how they can influence a verdict. The story makes a point on how Dan’s guilty verdict was good politics for everyone involved, except for Dan, and how his peers revel in it. That also means that the most egregious sequences in “Fatal Attraction” come from Dan discussing other crimes with the supporting cast. Its monotonous material exists to pad out the story. Everything that detracts from that central storyline comes across as inconsequential, even as this adaptation tries to explain the mindset and motivations of its cast.
Other than Caplan, the only other cast member that is having a good time is Huss. Huss, perhaps best known for his time on “Halt and Catch Fire,” plays Mike as an extremely supportive yet sarcastic mentor. He improves every scene he’s in, and it’s a nice juxtaposition with Jackson’s sour lead. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of the characters introduced during the series who have one-off appearances–they’re used as possible suspects or tools to heighten the characterization of Caplan and Jackson.
Erotic thrillers are having a bit of a moment right now. There’s an acclaimed podcast series devoted to the genre and reignited discussions about the role that sex scenes play in movies and television. A new adaptation of the classic “Fatal Attraction” should’ve been a slam dunk. Instead of committing to recharacterizing Alex or making Dan more worthy of our sympathy, the series doesn’t do anything revolutionary to their characters. What we’re left with is a lot of bloat around the core story of a privileged white man whose affair has come back to haunt him. There’s tension in that core, but so much of that is lost while pontificating about the legal system, exploring past traumas, and developing characters that are petty diversions. As a remaking of an essential erotic thriller, there’s not much thrill to be found. [D]
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