No bunnies are boiled in Paramount’s remake of the supremely cheesy and sleazy 1980s erotic thriller Fatal Attraction (Paramount + from today). But this eight-part reboot nonetheless stays loyal to the source material, down to the troubling sexual politics. As with the Michael Douglas-Glenn Close original, the milieu is the pre-Harvey Weinstein epoch of sizzling glances and sexual advances. We even get a repeat of the sex-in-kitchen from the film. Behold the clunkiest attempt at reliving the 80s since they tried to bring back the Rubik’s cube.
Fatal Attraction 2.0 benefits from a great cast. Lizzy Caplan is a sharp knife slashing through the shtick-heavy script as Alex Forrest – the co-worker who sets her sights on district attorney Dan Gallagher (Joshua Jackson).
In 1987, Douglas and Close sparked as forbidden lovers bringing out the worst in each other. Here, Caplan and Jackson have a sort of anti-chemistry: they aren’t drawn to one another so much as caught in a tractor-beam of mutual self-destruction. The message is that happy people will often go to extremes to sabotage their lives.
The show has beamed in from a pre-#MeToo era. It isn’t interested in exploring the power imbalance between Gallagher, a high-flying lawyer who hopes to become a judge, and Alex, a lowly victims liaison officer. Indeed, it goes further than the 1987 movie in painting Alex as the manipulative sociopath who despoils Dan’s contented domestic life and his marriage to Beth (Amanda Peet). As with Douglas 36 years ago, he’s a naif caught in the headlights of a manipulative woman – and so is left off the hook.
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The biggest change is to frame the story as a flashback. It opens with Dan in prison for – and this isn’t a spoiler as it is revealed at the outset – the murder of Alex. He’s about to be released and reaches out to his estranged daughter, Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels).
He wants to explain that, while he killed the woman who had ripped asunder his family, he is the true victim. And so we rewind to his initial flirtation with Alex – their eyes lock when he spies her through a crowded elevator – and their hilarious lovemaking in an open-plan kitchen.
The return of the “erotic thriller” has been largely thrill-free. Last month, Netflix put subscribers off sex for life with the dreadful Obsession. A do-over of Cruel Intentions is also in the works. What nobody seems to have stopped to ask is whether the public needs to see actors who’d clearly rather be in a Marvel movie or Star Wars spin-off gritting their teeth as they canoodle on the kitchen island.
No matter how poorly they have aged by modern standards, in the 1980s Fatal Attraction and its ilk left a lasting impression on audiences. That, though, belonged to an older generation: the context, in terms of sexual politics of the era, was entirely different. What worked then won’t necessarily speak to contemporary viewers. Kudos to Caplan and Jackson for giving the new Fatal Attraction their best. But this bunny boiler-free retread is all fur coat and no knickers.
