Paramount (USA)
1.85:1 1080p
119 minutes
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English, DD 2.0 surround French, DD 2.0 mono Spanish
Subtitles: Optional English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Extras: audio commentary; Forever Fatal: Remembering Fatal Attraction; Social Attraction: The Cultural Phenomenon of Fatal Attraction; Visual Attraction; rehearsal footage; alternate ending; theatrical trailer
Released: 9 June 2009
When it was released in 1987, Fatal Attraction became something of a pop culture phenomenon. Its premise lead to a lot of ink spilled by the press and many water-cooler discussions at the workplace. Yet, I must say...I don’t get it.
In Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas plays Dan Gallagher, a married man who has an affair with a woman (Glenn Close) one weekend while his wife and little daughter are gone. Dan’s a good man, and this is probably his first affair. What he doesn’t expect is that Alex Forrest will cling to him obsessively. She calls him at his office constantly, and then she calls him at home constantly. She threatens Dan’s little girl, and she terrorizes the family by boiling the Gallaghers’ pet rabbit. Also, she’s pregnant by Dan.
Adultery and violence can lead to discussions that feel uncomfortable, and the movie tries very hard to make much out of its “controversial” subject matter. Despite the fact that Adrian Lyne is at the helm of the project (he also directed Indecent Proposal, Lolita, and Unfaithful), Fatal Attraction feels very pedestrian, even boring. The movie has a very flat tone, and the pacing drags until the final 15 or so minutes. Also, rather than discussing adultery with any intelligence or moral authority, the movie degenerates into the usual blood-drenched climax. Everybody has a weapon shoved in someone else’s face, and everybody tries to kill someone else.
Video:
The 1.85:1 1080p video image looks a tad faded. Colors are very drab for a relatively recent movie. The transfer is also on the soft side. Film grain has been kept in check, though you can still see it throughout most of the movie. On the plus side, the film negative has been cleaned up so that there aren’t many scratches or patches of dirt. Compression artifacts are non-existent for the most part.
Audio:
For the most part, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English track is fairly subdued. Most of the sound field collapses around the center channel speaker. Directionality effects flow across the front speakers once in a while, but the rear speakers don’t get to do much at all. Heavy bass kicks in very suddenly during some scenes with heavy-handed music cues, so you might want to turn down the volume knob to avoid being startled by sudden increases in volume.
Extras:
This Blu-ray edition has the same extras as the DVD.
First up is an audio commentary by director Adrian Lyne. He admits that he doesn’t remember much about the production due to the passage of time, but he does talk fairly continuously throughout the feature, always commenting a bit about what he was trying to do with the movie.
There are a couple of featurettes, but they all feel rather self-congratulatory in tone rather than informative. The first one is “Forever Fatal: Remembering Fatal Attraction”. Basically, people involved in the making of the film recall how “brilliant” the screenplay was and how exciting it was to make a movie like Fatal Attraction. Former Paramount boss Sherry Lansing produced the movie, so it should come as no surprise that she enthuses about the movie, the “highlight” of her producing career.
Next up are “Social Attraction: A Look at the Cultural Phenomenon of Fatal Attraction” and “Visual Attraction: Behind-the-Scenes Production Footage”. The titles basically explain what these featurettes cover. Again, they’re very self-congratulatory in nature.
Finally, you also get rehearsal footage, an alternate ending with introduction by director Adrian Lyne, and a theatrical trailer.
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