FATAL ATTRACTION

Glenn Close and Michael Douglas

FATAL ATTRACTION (1987). Director: Adrian Lyne.

Lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is happily married to wife Beth (Anne Archer) and the two have a small daughter. One night at a party Dan meets Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) and sparks immediately strike between the two. A second chance encounter leads into dinner and a heated sexual liaison, then an intense weekend fling. Alex knows that Dan is married but she is not to be put off when she demands that he see her again. Dan wants to think of this as just a pleasant interlude, but Alex is already making marriage plans. Before long she is phoning and stalking Dan and getting personally involved in the lives of his family. It's a question of who will break first, angry husband or angrier paramour.

Bad boy: Michael Douglas

Fatal Attraction is a well-made and absorbing picture although one could argue that it skirts the tougher questions. The picture also has an old-fashioned tone to it in that the wife in this is pretty much expected (after some initial anger) to meekly put up with her husband's peccadilloes, especially when you consider what Alex puts her and her family through. Then there's the fact that Dan shows not the slightest trace of hesitation or guilt as he throws himself pell mell into an affair when his trusting wife and child are out of town  -- he hardly ever seems remorseful. Some of this is due to Douglas' performance, a glibness that may inadvertently give a clue to Dan's (lack of) character. Anne Archer is more than solid as Beth, and Ellen Latzen makes an adorable young daughter.

Alex having a bad moment

And then there's Glenn Close, who steals the movie. Close herself has remarked how the film does not delve enough into the events or psychological traumas that might have made Alex the unwrapped person that she is, but Close does her best to vividly bring the woman to life in spite of it. Whether she's being flirtatious or murderous, giving vent to a psychotic rage or almost engaging the audience's sympathy due to her loneliness and unrequited feelings, she is always on top of things (she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar).

Glenn Close

But let's not be too sympathetic for her. While women who have affairs with married men often say, rightfully, that the husbands are worse because they are married, the mistresses (although Alex never quite becomes a mistress) shouldn't be let off the hook. Alex enters into the relationship with Dan even though she knows he's married -- it is possibly her sheer narcissism that convinces her that Dan will almost immediately drop his wife for her. The punched-up ending involving a bathtub and a butcher knife is like something out of a slasher film only not as gory. The film is compelling enough on its limited terms that it probably would have worked with its original wind-up. Considering that Dan is a prick -- not for how he treats Alex so much but for how he treats his wife -- I would not be so quick to say that the film has a happy ending. Dan may choose his next paramour with more care, but there will be more paramours in the future, you can bet. Cheaters cheat.

Verdict: Not exactly Hitchcock, but well-made and occasionally suspenseful and exciting. ***.

BODY OF EVIDENCE

Madonna

BODY OF EVIDENCE (1993.) Director: Uli Edel.

Rebecca Carlson (Madonna of Die Another Day) enjoys kinky sex with her elderly lover, Andrew (Michael Forest). When he dies, cocaine is not only found in his system, but in a nasal spray by the bed, and an autopsy confirms that the combination of the coke and his bad heart led to his death. Rebecca is put on trial for first degree murder with Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe of American Psycho) as her lawyer, and Robert Garrett (Joe Mantagna) as the prosecutor. Predictably, Rebecca initiates Frank -- who is married to Sharon (Julianne Moore) -- into some mild "bondage and discipline" sex. Meanwhile other suspects emerge during the trial, including Andrew's ex-lover and secretary, Joanne (Anne Archer), and Rebecca's ex-lovers, Dr. Paley (Jurgen Prochnow) and Jeffrey Roston (Frank Langella). It seems she had a habit of bedding older men with heart conditions and big bank accounts. But did Rebecca murder Andrew or not, and what will the verdict be? It would be easy to pick apart Body of Evidence (which was pretty much excoriated when it first came out), but despite its flaws, I found the movie suspenseful and entertaining. As the very bad girl, Madonna gives a competent performance, but it has no shadings; Mantagna, Dafoe and others are far superior. The protracted sex scenes in the movie will either stimulate or nauseate the viewer depending on whether or not you find Madonna and Dafoe especially attractive (I don't), but they seem to go on forever. One sequence could be described as borderline rape. Rebecca's home and gallery is so large and luxurious that one wonders why she needs anyone else's money (mortgages, perhaps). Michael Forest  [The Money Jungle], the tall, handsome. well-built actor who had numerous film and TV roles in the sixties and who played Adonis on Star Trek, has no lines but simply plays Andrew as a corpse. The film is well-directed by Uli Edel, and looks good as well. Frank Langella again plays an apparently bisexual character as he did in Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Verdict: No Paradine Case, certainly, but on its own terms, a fun junk movie that often resembles softcore porn. ***.

TROUBLEMAKER: SURVIVING HOLLYWOOD AND SCIENTOLOGY

TROUBLEMAKER: SURVIVING HOLLYWOOD AND SCIENTOLOGY. Leah Rimini. Ballantine; 2015.

In part memoir and in part excoriation of the horrible cult of scientology, Remini (with Rebecca Paley) has put together a gripping account of her trials and tribulations with the Cult of Cruise. Rimini, star for many seasons of The King of Queens (formerly she played Carla's daughter on Cheers), was indoctrinated into the cult at an early age, and grew up thinking it was normal to be washing toilets in a motel for $15 a week at the age of fourteen. Living conditions for the lesser scientologists are quite different from the way the "stars" live, and anyone who speaks out about those conditions is branded a "Suppressive Person" and winds up censured or, as real religions would put it, excommunicated. Members of the cult are strongly encouraged to tell on anyone who transgresses, or they will be considered transgressors themselves. Once a sane person decides to leave the "church," they must be cut off from people who remain in the "church," including members of their own family. Rimini makes it clear that the power of the cult has been greatly overestimated both in its numbers and -- despite the success of its most famous members -- in Hollywood (for every Tom Cruise there's an Anne Archer or Kirstie Alley, who is now better known for diet commercials than anything else). Like most cults, the rules for most members don't apply to leaders such as Tom Cruise or his buddy Tom Miscavige,whose wife Shelley has not been seen in public for many years. Rimini filed a Missing Persons report but got nowhere with the police. Perhaps out of embarrassment, Remini sort of downplays the fact that this "religion," founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, revolves around the influence of some outer space alien (yes!) This is not the first nor last expose on scientology, but Remini's comparatively high profile may finally make everyone see what a crock of shit it is.

Verdict: Good read which exposes some appalling situations. ***.