Kim & Em vs EVIL
Two armed and dangerous women do battle with the forces of cinema villainy.
A movie podcast hosted by two female film aficionados who love nothing better than getting under the skin of famous movie villains to discuss whether or not these 'baddies' are just plain evil... or should we cut them some slack? Could the villains actually be the victims? If so, what is the true root of evil in the thrillers, horrors and action movies we all know and love?
Kim & Em vs EVIL
EPISODE 3: FATAL ATTRACTION
A slice of cut-throat (literally) Hollywood controversy as Emily and Kim go back to 1987 – a time of big hair, big thrills ,and big-time erotic thrillers! But were the sexual politics of the 80s questionable at best? Expect more buttock thrusts than Michael Douglas in sex rehab as we shine a light into those lovelorn eyes of Alex Forest to reveal her character as quite the victim of the the times in the wake of the feminist backlash of 1980s America. Yes, we love Alex as the complex villain/victim she became – which is why we want you to give her another chance...
Two women, countless villains. You have entered Kim and M versus Evil.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, this is Kim M vs. Evil, the podcast that plucks through the plethora of famous movie villains to discuss whether or not these so-called baddies are just plain evil, or should we cut them some slack? Are some villains actually the victims? If so, where is the true root of the evil driving the movie? And today we're going back to the steamy frizzy 80s and the much loved, I bloody loved it anyway. Erotic thriller. Love an erotic thriller.
SPEAKER_00:I love an erotic thriller and I love frizzy hair. And I wish it would make a comeback because I would be sorted. Thanks. Anyway, very juicy times for someone who didn't want to necessarily watch porn but still get a steamy thrill in their viewing experience. The 80s and 90s were all about heat. Notable films include Body Heat, which is one of my favourites, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, Nine and a Half Weeks with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, Body Double, Dress to Kill. The genre almost defined 90s cinema with the hits Basic Instinct, Body of Evidence, which had Madonna and William Defoe in and some hot wax. Poison Ivy, one I don't re I don't remember watching, but I know the film. Sliver, disclosure, and of course, not forgetting the big one.
SPEAKER_01:Fatal Attraction. Oh my god. By the way, I absolutely loved these films, and that is why I sort of said earlier it's they were they were like the next best thing to pawn and completely mainstream. I mean, you know, Michael Douglas was really buttock thrusting his way through the 80s. I mean, basic instinct. Um for me, basic instinct was like a date movie. It really was.
SPEAKER_00:It was very happy days. Michael Douglas did go to sex addiction. That's true. So he liked doing them. I was gonna say classes. Watch what they do.
SPEAKER_01:He famously did, didn't he? He did. Anyway. Right, fatal attraction today, everyone. Uh, we're gonna be doing a deep dive into this one. Again, there was a lot for me to learn, for us both to learn. So stay with us as we unpick some of the most, I think it's safe to say, memorable movie moments in cinema history, and that famous phrase, the movie coined, still in use today, I think, is the bunny boiler. Okay, first up, the facts.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, right. So straight in. It came out in 1987. It's an 18, which has surprised me having just re-watched it this week. It's not that uh that graphic or anything, but but yeah, still still qualifies as an 18. Can they change certificates? You can. Yeah. Jaw's was, I'm sure Jaw's has changed certificates. Anyway, anyway, but anyway, there's there's actually very little nudity or visible sex on screen, but that I mean that's sex. It's quite rampant and violent. Yeah, it's quite violent, and that and adult themes and and all of that. But that sex scene was very memorable. Uh, there's a couple of boob shots. Did I ever tell you about my Balls for Boobs campaign? No. Well, that's one for another time, definitely. Uh, get on board. The director is Adrian Lyne, who became known for erotic thrillers, having also directed the previously mentioned Nine and a Half Weeks, as well as Indecent Proposal, Lolita, and Unfaithful, uh, which was Richard Gere, I believe. Um, so he was then fascinated by Infidelity, I guess. Um, casting no aspersions. Uh, but big kudos to him uh with his nod to horror because he also directed the superb psychological Vietnam horror, Jacob's Ladder.
SPEAKER_01:And that's really deep and dark, and I mean, and this film as well, very psychological.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, uh, and dealing with some quite um complicated themes, I think. I've got to see that again. Yeah, I haven't watched it in a while, but anyway, they all all of his films have a compelling sense of pace and excitement and delve into our dark sides. So, who's who? Right. Who's who? Who's who? Glenn Close famously plays our villain or antagonist, uh, Alex Forrest. I believe no coincidence her name could be male or female, right? Because that's typic, that's typical of the horror genre, and this does travel the horror genre, it's often called a horror, uh, as well as a thriller. Um, but yes, uh that kind of androgynous um is that can you say androgynous for a name? Yeah. I think so. Well, we we just did, uh, but I also think her surname is significant with um uh forest. I mean, maybe I'm looking too much into it, but you know, the the phrase you can't see the forest for the trees. Um he didn't know what he had it coming. He didn't know he had it coming.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, interesting. Um, Michael Douglas, of course, plays Legal, Legal, and Straying Husband Dan Gallagher. I nearly called him Philanderer, but he wasn't really, it was just this one-off, you know. Philanderer suggests he does it regularly. Maybe he does, maybe the film just doesn't touch on that. Uh, Anne Archer, uh, who plays his suffering wife, Beth Gallagher. And then the daughter, Ellen Gallagher, is played by Ellen Latson, who impressed everyone at the time, and and still she's very impressive as the super cute and natural acting daughter who I think clearly had been studying Anton Chekhov for naturalism.
SPEAKER_01:I will talk uh that's a little fun fact, but I mean, basically, she uh wasn't an actor at all, I don't think. They auditioned over a thousand, I think. I've got this in my facts somewhere, so I might touch on it later. Um, but actually, just really super quick, you know those like lovely natural scenes between um that cute little girl wearing an oversized the one thing that made me laugh in one of the earliest scenes in family life. She's wearing like like the biggest t-shirt ever, like hit her dad's t-shirt, and he's literally wearing it, wearing like knickers or something. He's like yeah, uh the first scene. He's on the phone. No, he's on headphones, and she goes, Daddy, phone, phone rings, and he gets up and he's he's looks like he's practically not wearing it. I was like, that family just doesn't get their clothing correct at all. But anyway, uh yes, I thought her acting was great, and it almost almost reminiscent of those jaws, those scenes in jaws, yeah. It's very subtle family life, almost looked improvised. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, do you know what? I know this is this is um an aside, but we might not come back to it, so I'm gonna say it now. One of my favourite parts in the in the film is when they are um uh having that dinner at home with their friends, Jimmy, the other lawyer, the family lawyer, and and his wife, and the interplay between them is so you can't kind of almost can't hear what they say sometimes. I had the subtitles on, um, and I would have missed what they were saying. But the conversation was so natural and um really important as well. Yeah, but not kind of um, you know, signposted. Um, she's she's they're saying something about ball and chain, you know, all these kind of ideas about um, yeah, they're and they're joking about marriage, but it all feeds into the film and why he does what he does, and um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think it also has that stark opposition to Alex's life, that solitary life, and then they've got this very jovial, warm, fuzzy friends everywhere, and yeah um, yeah, what she's lacking. Um anyway, okay. So um just going back to the the film and when it came out, uh, you probably know this anyway, but it was a massive success, being the second highest grossing film of 1987. Um, the first one was ironically Three Men and a Baby, which was more sort of gender role reversing, maybe. Um, it was the highest grossing film of the year, and that's on a worldwide uh level. So uh people were clearly hungry for this delectably dangerous tale of lust and obsession. It was sexy times. Uh the film was nominated for six Oscars and for such a sort of yeah, kind of edgy film. I mean, you know, mainstream, quite below the belt, literally, uh, and it got six Oscars, sorry, nominated, including Best Actress for Glenn Close. She did lose out to Cher for Moonstruck. I can't remember Moonstruck, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, but I love Cher and I'm so glad that she won. But isn't it a comedy? Both have won.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, anyway. Um, it was also up for best picture and best director, so critically went down really well. Um, and as if we needed more justification uh to explore the villainy on this particular podcast of Alex Forrest. Her terrifying performance was ranked number seven. This is a hundred being not too villainous and one being very uh including heroes as well, on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes and Villains list. Uh it's a documentary, you can catch it on YouTube if you like. Um, the film was actually adapted from the short film diversion, which I didn't know. I didn't know. Didn't know, lots I didn't know actually, um, by an English screenwriter, James Dearda. Um, and it was initially a lot more subtle in that um version of the story. It wasn't about a kind of crazy woman, but in Dearden's words, it was a moral tale about a man who transgresses and pays the penalty. Does he though? But what we get in the film is is far more villainous and dramatic. And I like the fact that it's villainous and dramatic, to be honest. Um, but yeah, this the script apparently was changed and changed and rewritten to make Dan nicer and make her more yeah, more angry, more tricky. So it kind of had a lot of versions apparently. Um it had to reflect the current climate for lots of different reasons, really interesting reasons, which we will obviously explore.
SPEAKER_00:Well, as ever, just for context, I'm gonna read you the IMDB synopsis. I mean, our synopsis synopsis don't always come from IMDB, but this one is from IMDB. Uh, here we go. A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family. That's the rather pedestrian description. Thanks, IMDB, though I'm not knocking it, but you know, for a bit more daily sport, in case we lost any listeners there. Some of the taglines read. So I love these.
SPEAKER_01:I always have done because movie marketing taglines, I'm sure everyone knows this, they're there to sell the film, you know. So they're they're the tagline that you know you might see in a tabloid. Um, so one of the I think these are ridiculous, but okay. On the other side of drinks, dinner and a one-night stand lies a terrifying love story. Terrifying. I just think what's what's all what's the other side of drinks? It all goes wrong on the other side of drinks.
SPEAKER_00:Really quite dramatic. My god, well, yeah, there's a terri terrifying love story, though. Is it a love story? I mean, it's very one-sided. Kind of for her. It's very one-sided. Yeah, it is. Sorry, sorry, Alex Boris. Um, here's another one: a look that led to an evening, a mistake he'll regret for the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_01:In caps, as I cut and paste that into our little scripty. So, yeah, it's literally for the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_00:Dun dun dun capitals, very mean it. He doesn't regret it for the rest of his life, because it works out all right in the end.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Kind of yeah. Um, I've got a one-night fling with no strings attached. That's what she said. That's what he believed.
SPEAKER_00:He writes these. That's what she said, bitch. Well, did she say she didn't she did say the only time she said no strings attached, actually, was when she invited him to the opera. Uh, but right, the last one, the last one. I hope I haven't lost the momentum for this one. One night stands can be mouda.
SPEAKER_01:They can be, apparently. Um, firstly, uh, I'm gonna just jump in there. So I loved that. Okay, well done. One night stands can't be murder. Um, firstly, though, I do think on a personal level the film is brilliant, still love it, it's exciting, it's pacey. Uh, I I love how it stands today, even with the controversial changed ending. If you don't know about that, we we're gonna get into that big time because for me, that changes the balance in a big way. And the reason they changed it is very critical to understanding the film. Um, it's perfectly ripe for our podcast because uh while it does explore a very, you know, she is a strong woman, they her character, the way they do her character is is really is really well done, I think. And it is her descent into obsession, madness, and let's face it, animal cruelty. Um and I think it does it well. I think there are subtleties and nuances, you know. Uh, but on the on the rewatch, I I analyse the dialogue a bit more this time, but and I do feel that Dan is reasonable and nice. It isn't just black and white, he's not very nice or or he's lovely, she isn't. I do think it's well written. Um, Dan's reasonable to a point. I mean, he really turns when she nicks his daughter, so I do kind of understand that, but yeah, he does go a tad too violent with the strangulation. Um but maybe you would, maybe you would. Um and I think Alex is good. I I would say she's a three-dimensional character, not a two. I think they've written the woman, the female character well. She had she is given important backstory, i.e., the hint at her father, she lost her father, that she covers up and pretends is a lie, and then he realizes, oh my god, she did lose her father. So there's lots of suggestions of being mentally unstable. That's another huge topic we'll get into. Um however, it's still one of the most misogynistic anti-Coreer women movies ever made, and consciously so. Um, and on reflection, for me, I think it's just a case of the balance, the balance of the blame and how they've made certain characters, um, as opposed to the whole film being terrible and anti-feminist. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I, you know, I like her as a villain.
SPEAKER_00:I I agree with you, I think it's great. Um, I think the writing is spot on, uh, direction as well. I'll get into some of that later. The acting is fantastic. Uh, I also love how it stands up today, but um, but combined with this um uh the fact that it stands out as an 80s time capsule as well, you know. I think it's really evocative of 1980s New York, which aesthetically is really pleasing. Um both and but both Dan and Alex's dialogue is so sharp. I agree with you, both of them actually seem reasonable, as you say to a point, because obviously it does go completely off the rails. Uh, but it's totally convincing how she tightens her grip and how he keeps thinking he can sweet talk or maneuver his way out of the shit show it's becoming uh without kind of uh telling his wife anything. I remember watching it as a kid thinking, just tell your fucking wife, just say there's this crazy woman that I've met through work who's obsessed with me, um, and just let her know that this is going. But of course, he's not, he's just thinking I can just handle this and make it go away. Uh, nuances I didn't get as a kid, but anyway, I agree it's really misogynistic. Um uh the contrast between Anne Archer's Beth as the wife and Glenn Close's Alex is very marked, not only in their personalities and lifestyle, um, although Beth does get really ballsy by the end, yeah. Um, but also in appearance, because Alex Alex is really harsh looking with her, I called it springy super noodle hair. Her wild hair, but that was her decision. Was it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was um Glenn Close uh wanted to do that with her hair, yeah, yeah, well be a bit of a lioness, and of course she's blonde and um uh Beth is dark.
SPEAKER_00:She's got this this uh black eyeliner as well, consistently throughout the film. She has a black and white wardrobe, it kind of swings between the two, and I think of that as showing the two kind of sides to her personality. Yes, yes um, this this side that seduces and that seems reasonable and and cool and all of that in the in the white, and then then there's like her when she's fragile and almost childlike in the white, and I almost thought Grecian tragedy, yeah, because then uh there's the whole listening to Madame Butterfly, and so I almost saw her as this sort of tra to me tragic heroine. She is, well, she I think we can see it through that later. You can now, I mean maybe they did then. Um, but also she's got these sharp shoulders. I I keep thinking about that leather coat that she wore to his office, you know, when she offers him the Madame Butterfly tickets. I love her in that. Beth is soft with her fluffy brown hair and dough eyes and warm tones, and um, but I think it's really interesting what you say about balance because I think that the scant information actually about Alex's backstory is an example of how the balance is tipped to make a side more readily with Dan. So although it's there, there's a hint of psychological uh motivation and depth, it's never really fully explored with Alex.
SPEAKER_01:It isn't. Um, one of the things on a sort of practical level though is that it's a film, and that's why a lot of I'll get into this a little bit later. Um, you know, you've got let's say 90 to 120 minutes to get all of this across. Yeah, I mean, they may even have had more of that, and it just ended up on the cutting room floor. I'm not sure, but you're right, yes, it would have been more great to dip into that more. I know um when I say close, I mean Glenn Close. I know Close wanted to um explore that side of things more because clearly she was very disturbed. And going back to the design of the characters, oh god, Beth, Beth, Beth, whiter than white, white little knickers, white little bra, hanging out the laundry, you know, hangs and the only other social life apart from her husband's friends are her parents. What a life! No, um, and I I do like her, and she's a fantastic actress. In fact, I think she was nominated for best supporting actor as well, actress. Um so yeah, she's great, but it would have been nice just to see her a bit flawed, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, a little bit flawed, we're all flawed. I mean, it it the film does kind of try and um give reasons for why he might be tempted to stray, and there's the there's the there's a hint at although you know it's essentially quite an idyllic marriage, there are hints at the drudgery of married life and the responsibilities, and then you know, the having to take the dog out before bed and and um and the parent having to go and stay with the parents and and all of that, and when the when he's hoping to get to have some have sex with his wife, well the daughter's got in bed that yeah, with them, so and she's like, Oh, some really funny it's just for tonight, it's just oh god, I I I grab my kids and put them in the bed and go, sorry, love.
SPEAKER_01:It's really handy. And they're like, Mom, leave me alone. Come on, I can't be, I can't be wife at all. No, I'm not gonna be all the archetypes, bloody hell, I'm exhausted. I hope you're gonna bear with me on this one because when I was researching this, when we were both researching, um the cultural sort of climate of it always really relevant to this film because of decisions that were made to change the film were directly to do really with what people were kind of feeling and thinking at the time, at least in America. So, yeah, to understand the film and certain decisions made, we're going to look at where and when the film sits within our cultural time frame. So, during the late 1980s, there was a widespread preoccupation with the idea that feminism, which had made significant gains uh in the 70s, it's only a decade later, uh, was now making women miserable, lonely, unfulfilled. Uh, and suddenly those who prioritise their careers uh were said to be facing an epidemic of depression, burnouts, even infertility. And this stuff is actually like written down in a report. Um, so so they call it the sort of feminism backlash uh in the 80s, even though there were a lot of films like Working Girl, for example, there's tons of these fantastic 80s films that sort of look at a woman in a man's world, but there culturally there was a bit of a backlash against it. Um, and this was due in great part to a very misinformed and pretty damaging report, and it was called The Marriage Crunch. Published uh yeah in. Did you know about this? No, I didn't read this. Well, no, I just watched Fatal Attraction as a film. I didn't uh do an academic dive on it, but yeah, so it was published in Times Week magazine, the famous magazine in 1986. It was like apparently fully researched, but actually it was all debunked later on. Um so this was only a year before Fatal Attraction was made. Um, it's stated that women were in crisis, and they did use some very shocking and silly uh statistics. The article went on to become a cultural phenomenon, and it's been cited directly as fueling the panic and fear on both sides of the gender fence about scary, unmarried dun dun dun, 30-something. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:Career women. How dare we be 30-something, over the hill, on the scrap peak.
SPEAKER_01:Um, yeah, I'll just this this report found apparently from doing some, I don't know, questioning probably about 10 women, um, that unwed, college-educated women in their shock collar 30s are they only had a 20% chance of uh getting hitched. And this terrifying statistic declines drastically when she reaches 40. It was said to plummet to only 1.3% chance.
SPEAKER_00:Imagine being oh imagine.
SPEAKER_01:I know, and then apparently there was this like cliche and joke uh thrown around, and people were saying, Oh, statistically, single women over the age of 40 were more likely to experience a terrorist attack than find a husband. No such comparison for there must be single men out there, like an equal amount, and they don't say it about them.
SPEAKER_00:No, well, even so, I mean, it's as if uh the primary aim of all women, and indeed everybody, is to get married, and you know I'm not married, no one wants to marry me. So unmarryable. I really am. I mean, look. So, like talking about women over 30, there's actually a line in the film where Alex says when she's when she's telling Dan that she's pregnant that that that at 36 this might be her last chance she has to get pregnant and have a baby. Uh so that comes to mind, you know, for that for that character.
SPEAKER_01:I mean that's a really important part of the film because they're going into reproductive rights, yeah. And you know, it's a very tricky one. You know, I do think a man should be in involved, blah blah blah, but he he does sort of coerce her into having an abortion, and she's 36 and saying, Well, it's my last chance. Hello?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, and then she's like, Well, I'm telling you, because I I would have liked you to be involved, and of course, that like that's important. Thing is, I'd have been scared of her if I'm honest. Of course, we all think she's making it up, but then it's correct, it's confirmed that she's not making it up.
SPEAKER_01:Really quickly, going to jump in. This is so interesting. I listened to a podcast really briefly, didn't listen to the whole thing, and it was but two men had um, I should really say what it was. I was just like going through Fatal Attraction, listening to some other people's research. So two men were talking a bit about Fatal Attraction and that they watched it when they were around 14. And they said, and this is interesting in terms of what you retain from watching a film, they said until they were adults again, watching it for you know, as adults, they couldn't remember the fact that actually she was pregnant, they just presumed she was making it up to be manipulative, but also the film conveniently forgets it.
SPEAKER_00:Like, we don't care by the end that she's growing a baby inside her, we we want that bitch dead. Okay, I've spoiled something we're gonna talk about later. But you know, the audience and and Michael Douglas and her wife don't care that she's carrying a baby. I know she's you know, I know the circumstances of that that finale, and she, Alex, is trying to kill the wife, but still, I can there's no mention of it again, is there? No, and it's a huge, huge one. So, anyway, uh, but this let's to go back to the study um the about marriage, the marriage crunch, um, it did contribute to the cultural anxiety around lonely, desperate, and embittered single women. But having said that, this did give us Bridget Jones, Sex in the City, uh, and of course the mother of all of these fatal attraction, the film we're talking about today. Um, with one executive of 20th Century Fox describing the film as the psychotic manifestation of the Newsweek marriage study. The link was made. So the cautionary tale is for both men and women here. For men, it's a warning: don't cheat on your wife, or you'll lose your family and home. For women, it warns against the emptiness of life as a professional woman. All the clothes and trendy apartments in the world will not fill the void, a baby and a man will.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um, I think that's that's like the crux of it all. And it's interesting because again, on the rewatch, um to me that that really came out more was that that loneliness. That that side of it. I mean, I know it's clear in the film, it's not even that subtle, you know, that oh, that scene that really breaks my heart. Um, they they're cutting between two events on the same night. She's got these tickets for Madame Butterfly, and she's at home. We start to realise she's a bit psychotic and um disturbed here, sitting on her own, like mascara. She's clearly been crying, turning the light on and off like a robot, uh, stare, you know, with a thousand years stare. And she's all alone. It's horrible, and it's cut cut against or cut to um all those uh the the four people, um, that you know, the lawyers and their wives, and they're out bowling, guffouring, and oh, aren't we having a great time? How smug are we? Smug married couples, as Bridget Jones calls it. And I do like Bridget Jones, but same sort of problem, isn't it? That fear, fear, fear, can't be alone. It's really awful. Um, um, so yeah, that loneliness is what really came out for me on a second watch.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Uh one of the things that I wanted to bring up, and I said earlier about how um it's really satisfying the way the film universalizes uh themes and foreshadows things that happen later. Um sometimes these two things go together. But when Alex and Dan are first thrown together in the office, the case they're discussing is whether they can get away with publishing a supposedly kiss and tell novel. That's true. Yes, and um to without the risk of legal action. So the book is written by a woman who had an affair with a congressman from Ohio in the film. Uh, but in the book that she's written, the character is a senator from New Jersey. Dan, as the literary lawyer, is meant to be proving the character isn't based on this guy who's uh raised concerns, um, threatening to block the publication. So he's asking if the author had an affair with Mr. Ohio, they call him, or not. And Alex steps in and says she'd she'd been on the phone with the author that morning, and um she says the author did have an affair with this guy, but she also had affairs with a number of other politicians uh who could feasibly make the same claim as Mr. Ohio. Um, meaning, of course, that it's not necessarily only based on this guy. The author swears the character is fictitious. Alex says she believes her. Clearly, Alex is someone whose word and judgment the film will reveal and encourage us to buy into uh are not trustworthy. Uh, but the message is laid out from the outset that men should not trust a scarlet woman. I've put in an inverted commas uh in my mind, because they'll entrap you. They will, you know, a woman scorned and all that. Um uh uh and in the case of the author, it's hinted that she's using her. Affair and her spurning, her subsequent spurning, to both profit and seek revenge. Um, yeah, and Alex will become an amplified version of this.
SPEAKER_01:That's interesting, yeah. Because I mean, I that scene kind of washed over me really, but you're right, it's almost like a sort of not film within a film, but it's like a little microcosm of what is a what's to come, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and also just to be we talked touched on Madame Butterfly, but that that kind of prefiguring and universalising happens there as well because they're they're listening to the music of Madame Butterfly in Alex's apartment, her and uh Dan, and they discuss the story in which the lead character kills herself. I've never seen Madame Butterfly, but after being rejected in love, shortly after, this is when Alex slits her wrists. Uh actually, the alternate ending that we'll get to, um Alex slits her throat, which is how the character in Madame Butterfly kills herself.
SPEAKER_01:There's oh there's massive parallels to uh Madame Butterfly for sure. I think we need to talk about Glenn Close here for obvious and not so obvious reasons. So obviously, the film would be pretty much nothing without her Oscar nominated acting. Um and she was pivotal though as an actor before, during, and after uh the film, and she still works with mental health charities as a result of her part in the film. Uh, talk about Fifty Shades of Alex. I mean, she's literally incredible. Um, when Glenn Close finally secured the part of Alex Forrest, which by the way, uh was quite unusual casting. Um the producers and director apparently didn't even want her to read for it. They said to her agent, please don't let her read. She's not sexy enough. Uh and she's not typically, I mean, I think she looks fantastic in the film, but um, you know, looking at um Beth Gallagher, got uh Anne Archer, um, and people have sort of said this as well online, she's more traditionally beautiful, less edgy looking. Um so but she so she did fight for the role, and so yeah, they didn't think she was sexy enough, but once secured, uh one of the first things she did, because she did really care, really care, and I think it comes across about Alex Forrest, and she took the script to two psychiatrists, two psychiatrists. Glenn Close took the script to two psychiatrists um to just see what they thought. And she actually said to them, is this behaviour even possible and why? And um apparently I'm not gonna go into it too much, but she was quite surprised by their reaction because they they didn't really go down the mental health disorder route at all. They kept they were saying, Oh, she's probably uh you know, um abused as a child and things like that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, well, I mean, that can lead to a mental disorder, right? But uh, but I really love that uh, you know, I know actors, serious actors have always done their research and developed their characters and understood them to a very deep level. But I love that she was interrogating the character like this, even then, and understanding herself, even if the film uh maybe doesn't draw it out that there would have been a mental illness present.
SPEAKER_01:It would help. Sorry, jumping in. As an actor, it's going to jump in as an actor. Again, you don't think I'm bad, I'm the bad one. Yes, let's be all bad. You are your own hero, and you've got to find the empathies and sympathies. And she desperately didn't want um Alex Forrest to just be a crazy lady. Um, she wanted the simp, you know, to be seen in a sympathetic light. And again, this is where that balance comes. And I think her acting and her vulnerability does come across, even though she's obviously sticking to their script. Um, it is just it's the way she acts that I mean I I I empathise with her throughout most of it. There are times when she's clearly pretty bad, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, well, yeah, but you know, there are there, come on, you don't you don't bore bunnies, but you know, he I mean it's Michael Douglas that escalates that you don't bore bunnies, but to attempted murder first, right? Anyway, um, but it but if this if this film was made now, um Glenn Close has said she would approach the film very differently. I don't, I mean, I don't know how kind of approach it with sympathy.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe she's maybe it's more like I well, producers and directors and and people like that they would have to acknowledge and depict it in in a more uh explicit way, probably.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, she's expressed a firm interest in interest in reimagining the film for the modern day from Alex's perspective, um, which has actually now been explored in the shape of a series, um, which I haven't seen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I haven't, I'm going to though, because I like a bit of va voom in the evening.
SPEAKER_00:We're missing my sex nineties shows. Yeah. But we'll come back to that. But um, but if you do look at the film through today's lens as we are, you can see um, you know, that that that there's uh hint about some kind of trauma and potential mental illness, um, just through the hint of her with her backstory and and also in her behaviours, like when you you mentioned about the when she was switching the light on and off. Such a good scene. Yeah, it's very sad. And when she first slits her wrists, you know, that's kind of goes from goes from uh one to eleven, and you think, oh my god, no no obviously no sane person would do this.
SPEAKER_01:It is manipulative to make someone stay out of guilt. That I mean, let's again not going to sugarcoat it. That is manipulative behaviour.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I think your point about balance comes in there, right? So it does come off that way, doesn't it? Because and we think, oh god, she's clearly manipulated there's not a lot of sympathy maybe from the audience because you think she's done that to manipulate him.
SPEAKER_01:Clearly, she's disturbed and should be and but also like he, you know, he patches her up, he stays with her all night because he leaves in the morning. So again, the you know, it's done in a way where we do like him. At this point, I mean, I still liked him. I still thought that's a decent thing for a guy to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it is, and ultimately, I think though those moments like that are done in such a way that they make us probably write her off as generically crazy rather than encourage us to feel empathy or sympathy.
SPEAKER_01:But it's clever because that's where the tension is as well. Because again, it's almost like, oh, who am I vying for here? Yeah, which is interesting, it isn't just you know, black and white, they're right, they're wrong.
SPEAKER_00:I think again, you're like, that's not a very cool thing to do, but he was really nice, but I feel sorry for her, but you know, well, I do feel like the choice was made to minimise psychological depth on her part, you know. It had I'll come back to your point about balance. Had it been, had it been a bit more explorative of or exploratory about um her backstory and her psychology, it might have tipped the balance a bit more towards sympathy for her. Absolutely. Uh but yeah, um Close believes audiences would now view her as a victim rather than than a villain. I think as this proving, yeah. Um, especially in the context of the Me Too era. She Close was also really uh vocal about opposition to the film's um altered ending. Yes, this is massive, the the altered ending, yeah, which would change really d really quite drastically from Alex's tragic suicide to a much more violent and dramatic confrontation with husband and wife team, Dan and Beth, who in an almost Grecian tragedy just you know obliterate Alex and all that she represents. It's brutal. Um yeah, never mind that Dan already had to stop herself once from strangling herself to uh strangling her to death.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, she gets strangled twice with anyway, but in one in one evening, poor woman. It's horrible. I know when you really look at it. Um, but yes, this is what I mean by uh as an actor, close was pivotal. Um, you know, she she wasn't just turning up and saying her lines, she vehemently opposed the ending. I mean, she fought tooth and nail, she was massively against it. So I think before we get into that, I'm just going to um go into this whole debacle. Talk about because you know what, I'll be honest, I uh I I hadn't seen the alternative ending. So, um, as we all know, uh the film ends in the bathroom. It's very nasty. She's like cutting her thigh with a knife, which is a brilliant scene. Oh, because you're like, oh my god, she's lost it, and she's not even really feeling the pain. Um, but anyway, that that is not how it was supposed to end. Quite the opposite, much more was supposed to mirror Madame Butterfly. Um, let's jump into this. So, Alex Forrest was originally scripted to die by suicide at the film's end by slashing her own throat with the same knife they fought with it that previous um that night or the previous night. Um, and her plan was to make it look as if Dan, uh I'm gonna do that again, that was well cheesy. It's because it rhymed. I was like, oh, it rhymes.
SPEAKER_00:I like a poem, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I know, but I I go cheesy, and this is a serious bit. Her plan was to make it look as if Dan had murdered her because his uh fingerprints were already on the knife, um, for which he would be arrested. And that is what you see in the original ending. You see him get arrested, uh, and thereby that is how she exacts her revenge post-death. Um, but uh they also have Beth um possibly showing a way to vindicate Dan because she finds that revealing um voice tape of Alex saying, and you see more in the original ending. I can't live without you, Dan. I can't live without you, Dan. I'm gonna kill myself if you leave me all and uh so in the original ending, you see Beth going, Thank God, thank God, I've got this tape, and it ends. Okay, so a lot more subtle, a lot more subtle. Um, however, and a big part of the whole law surrounding um this film is that the test audiences in America did not respond well to this original suicidal, more subtle ending at all.
SPEAKER_00:Well that all that's an understatement, but apparently people were shouting, just kill the bitch among yeah, punch the bitch's face in an American accent. Wow, yeah, it's nice wow. I mean, I mean, it's just a film, it's a little bit kind of gladiatorial circus on all of that, but anyway, the strong that is a pretty strong reaction. Um, and it illustrated that uh clearly suicide was not enough of a punishment for Alex, uh at least on screen. Um, she needed to be put down. Put the bitch down. Put the bitch down. We don't like it yet, get rid of it. Yeah. Um anyway, this resulted in a three-week reshoot for the what became a very, you know, it was action-filled, it was dramatic, it was exciting. Uh uh sequence to close the film um uh in the bathroom, and and we and Alex's Death by Gunshot fired by Beth crucially. That's crucial.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It becomes very, very again quite Grecian, quite symbolic, doesn't it? Um, what do you think then, Kim Bob? Of uh have you seen the original ending? By the way, um I only found it on YouTube, it's really fuzzy looking. It's yeah, but yeah, it's very cheap.
SPEAKER_00:I did find a better version on YouTube. I don't know why I I found that fuzzy one. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:And then I but anyway it's there, you should have a look. It's very different, very different, very subtle. I'm gonna be honest, I uh I think if we're mirror mirroring, can't say that, things like Madame Butterfly, and that you know, that's more poignant, and that would make it more of a drama. Um, however, I've got to say I do quite like the excitement of the um brutal reshot ending. I I just hate the fact that she was shot. I like I like what they did because it is more exciting, um, but it's uh the original ending has a sadness and a poignancy to it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it does. It's less thriller. And you know, if we if we're coming away from this feeling like, okay, these guys can now repla repair their nuclear family, um Beth having kind of um taken back some control as the woman that um shot the bullet that kills Alex and possibly opened up a new kind of honesty and um equality within our marriage, so they can go forward and repair and live a happy ever afterlife. Um it works, it works for me, but um as you say, like the the the original ending uh does you can't help leaving feeling more flat, more like this is a really tragic story and feeling some sympathy for that that woman. She gets rid of herself and the baby, and the baby, yeah. Um but well uh on you know that we're talking about the nuclear family. Uh one of my favorite moments in this film is when Alex is spying on the family through the window at their new home and throws up at this wholesome scene she's witnessing disgusting. Yes. So I mean, obviously, I suppose it's because it's she's seeing what she wants. She can't bear to see Dan playing happy families with his wife and daughter when she should be the woman in this picture. Um, uh, and she also can't bear to see Dan being a hypocrite, you know, because because he's a he's a living, breathing example of the Madonna Hall complex, I think, in in action here. Um, but also I think we can see it from today's perspective of the basic response feminists might have, bearing witness to this role women are pressured into. Alex is a career woman in the film, and you know, it's interesting to look at it maybe from that perspective.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna jump in. It's only just popped into my my my wee head. Um there's always gonna be a little bit of Scottish in here somewhere. Sorry for Scots out there listening and hating my accent. Um, just in terms of movie cultural references, um, there's a scene in, I think it's the first Bridget Jones, and obviously Bridget Jones, of course, it's a comedy, very different, but it's it's the same fear, fear of loneliness. A career woman, I'm on my own. She all she wants is to find a partner. And that's very normal. That doesn't make you weird, it doesn't make you not a feminist just because you want a husband. That's there's nothing wrong with that. But do you remember she's uh on the sofa, fed up, smoking, and they show that scene. She's watching TV, she's watching fatal attraction, and um, all you see is yeah, she's watching TV and flicking through the channels, and it's all about she's just surrounded by the idea of the sort of patriarchy and male dominance. So she turns a telly on and there's a um a nature document documentary, and there's a lion shagging another lion, and there's a voiceover going, mating is perfunctory and over very quickly. Um, and then she switches channels and it's fatal attraction, and you just get that moment where she's jumps out of the bath, so she survives scratch strangulation and drowning. She survives drowning, brilliant acting under the water there with her eyes wide open, holds her breath for a very long time, jumps up, boom, dead. And that's so brutal and sudden. And that's anyway, that's the bit she sees in Bridget Jones as well. Bridget sees in Bridget Jones, and she's like, Oh great, yeah, that's that's that's what's to come. That's what's to come. Um, yeah, let's get into the uh final death scene. It is symbolic because she's ultimately, we're gonna get all um academic here. Kim loves this, um, but she is literally killed by her mirror image because um Beth is having a ridiculously hot bath. Yes, just why I said the steamy 80s, there's always this is another thing in thrillers, it's another trope. A little message in you know, people always wipe a mirror and reveal someone or they write a message in the mirror like go away or stop doing that, don't they? Or stop go away. Have you ever written a message in a steamy mirror? No, I have. It's normally I love you, go away. Fuck off. I'm having a shoe. And I shouldn't be steamy if you're doing it. I'd give it, I'd give it a few minutes if I were you. Oh anyway, sorry. So there's a steamy mirror, because there always is in a horror or a thriller. Um, Beth wipes it and she sees the mirror image of um Alex, her very her enemy. Um, and here we see once again the dichotomy of female archetypes, and I hate to say it, but there's wife over there, and there's whore on the other side. I don't like the word whore, but in this scenario, um, we've got the wife who reigns supreme. It's not Dan. The wife gets to uh find the strength because she's a bit battered, she's had a car crash, um, to kill said whore, her enemy, and also the enemy or threat to the perfect wholesome nuclear family unit, stroke bedrock of American life, thereby uh restoring order. So I think it's significant to say the least that it's Beth that kills Alex. What do you think of that decision?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I'd said before, I think that it was important that she that she does um in terms of uh in terms of her br um clawing back some independence, some some kind of semblance of individuality, some kind of equality with her husband. Strength, yes, yeah. Um I I think it's an ending that works differently to the original ending, but is equally powerful and um uh important.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so again, yeah, mum trumps the mistress. Going back to um Glenn Close being um yeah, pivotal to the film. Um, this is sort of uh after the film that she thought the film had finished. Um it was a whole six months after they finished filming. Uh Glen Close, I'm gonna just say close, sorry, close got the call uh that she had to reshoot the ending after audiences were massively against how it ended. They hated it, they wanted her dead. Um and she said she fought for two weeks. Um, she said it was horrible because it felt like I was uh making a character I loved into a murdering psychopath. Um, quote, I was in a meeting with Michael, Stanley, and Adrian. I was furious. I said to Michael, how would you feel if it were your character? He said, Babe, I'm whore. That's a quote. So uh close continued. Uh, my friend William Hertz said, You fought your battle, now be a team player. So I shot it.
SPEAKER_00:I love her name drop. My friend.
SPEAKER_01:I know, my friend William Hurt. Um, so I think that bit's quite kind of interesting. Close said she learned something valuable here. Um, quote again, it's what the Greeks do. There's order in the family, then some element creates chaos, then order has to be restored. It's restored in tragedies through bloodshed. My blood was shed for order to be restored. It was cathartic for the audience. So she didn't want to do that ending, but she she played ball effectively, which I think is professional, but she didn't like it.
SPEAKER_00:I I don't know if you knew, um, but interestingly, the film was released in Japan with the original ending. That is weird and interesting. It is weird, and but if you're interested, well, you can find the original ending on YouTube, as we've previously said, uh, and on various re-releases of the film. Uh yeah. Changes the tone and balance, I think you will agree significantly.
SPEAKER_01:We mentioned this before, but we're gonna just just very quickly dip into it. Um, so while Alex Forrest was turned more and more into a villain um throughout the process of the film and the writing and the film and the editing and the different ending, um, cut to 36 years later, ironically, the same age Alex Forrest gets pregnant. I wrote that out. I was like, oh, I don't think that was intentional. Um, it was actually Paramount Pictures decided to revisit and reimagine the whole Fatal Attraction debacle in a TV miniseries of the same name Fatal Attraction, starring Joshua Jackson as Dan and Lizzie Kaplan uh as uh uh Alex, uh the Fatal Couple. Um, disclosure I haven't had time to see the mini-series Fatal Attraction, and I really want to check it out. Um disclosure.
SPEAKER_00:Have you seen Disclosure?
SPEAKER_01:I hope so. Sorry, I can't. I know I've seen a lot of that that's Michael Douglas as well, isn't it? Oh yeah. And a lawyer. Is it Sharon Stone again as well? I don't know. They did a lot together, didn't they? Sorry if that's wrong. Um sorry, I couldn't help but call out the fact that you said disclosure. Disclosure. Yeah, uh no, but what they tried to do, right, was address exactly what we're discussing today. They do go into backstory and they have two timelines apparently, um, whereby you actually see the ramifications of the affair 18 years later. So you see toddler Ellen as a teenager. But so that they tried to do that, and you know what? The response has been a little bit lukewarm with I've got it here somewhere, I thought I did, yeah. Um, The Guardian dismissed the TV series as not as sexy as the original, and on its own terms, just as sexist. Um yeah, because it was like, well, it's boring. They were like, it's boring, I don't care about Ellen as an 18-year-old. No, um, so they have tried to, you know, make Dan more reasonable and Alex less villainous, and it wasn't as fun, which to me begs the question I'm gonna ask you personally. So, is it okay then just to enjoy this film for what it is? So, Alex as a pure villain. Um, because as I said, they have tried to readdress it, and some of the critics were like, Yeah, well, that's boring.
SPEAKER_00:Look, I mean, can't win. I don't mind remakes at all. I think anything, I'm game for a remake of anything, pretty much. I mean, they don't obviously they're not always successful, um, and you know, plays have multiple versions. I always say this, I'm like a stuck record, but you know, and reimagining, so why not films? But it doesn't necessarily mean that it invalidates the original film. Now I think I think it's almost redundant, and I don't I like erotic thrillers, make a new erotic thriller. I understand why they want to hang it on to a tried and tested um IP because you've got a built-in audience, you people sit up and take notice, you'll make money from it, most likely. I understand that, but um but looking at at fatal attraction through a lens of how many years later are we? You know, um however many years later.
SPEAKER_01:So nearly 40 years ago.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you automatically bring the sensibilities and ideas from today to the piece of art you're watching, and discussing it brings out all of those uh themes and whether they were right or wrong, or uh how we look at things today, how how you looked at things back then. I don't think you need to remake something in order to redress a balance for that reason.
SPEAKER_01:It's a tricky one. I mean, for me, uh uh Alex Forrest, victim or villain. For me, clearly, I mean, this sounds so boring on the fence answer, but she's both. Um, possibly more victim, though, if I'm allowed to do balance and seesaws here. Um, I would say 30% villain or 40% villain, and maybe because I don't know how else to do it, because again, it's a very clever film, it's not black and white. Um, I'd say, yeah, 30 to 40% villainous and 60 to 70% victim. Can I do that? What do you think? Um Do I think Alex is a villain? Well, she is, but is she she's a good villain? But and again, these boys on the podcast, they said they were terrified of her as a character.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They found her frightening.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it kind of goes back to the Freudian vagina dentata thing. Love it, love it, love vagina dentata. She's just a personification of that, really, I suppose. Yeah, I'll have your I'll get your dick in a clamp and munch down.
SPEAKER_01:Bless her. Oh, sorry, sorry, boys.
SPEAKER_00:But she I mean, she that's the fear, I suppose, you know. I don't know. Very we're useful, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01:No, you you're very articulate, and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, it is just a film, and I I love her as a villain. I don't mind the reshot ending, it is more dramatic, yeah, but the original absolutely lends a bit more sympathy to her, although I think it weakens her a bit. Oh, I'm gonna commit suicide. Yeah. You know what? It um kind of uh really good film, just very quickly. Um is it a promising woman? Promising young A promising young woman with uh not Miley Cyrus, Carrie Mulligan. Um and that does have quite similar in a way to like this whole idea of framing someone for your own demise, you know. That's that's very tragic, that film. Have you seen it? It's stunning. It's I mean, it's I think it should be seen by all men. I'm sorry, it's a real wake-up call because it's about you know the really, really sort of murky side of uh sexism and well, rape and all sorts. Um, so anyway, yes, it's it's both both endings are brilliant for their own reasons. But I think with Fatal Attraction, the series, which um was made just two years ago, I think the fact that that it exists shows that A, there is still an appetite for entertainment exploring timeless problems, they're timeless problems of of marriage, how hard marriage is, infidelity. Um, but it also illustrates the original is problematic. It is problematic, it is deserving of a bit of a rethink. Um, but again, as a film, I think the original film wins hands down, entertainment-wise.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I'm always happy to see an erotic thriller, though. I like, you know, there's a darth of them today. I'd like to see more made. Uh, but I can watch people are scared now, aren't they? I know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Scared to go there in case we all get offended, which we're we're not, we're not. We don't mind, give it to us. Shall we wrap this one up then? Yes, yes, wrap it up. Any final thoughts there, Kim? Oh, goodness.
SPEAKER_00:Hundreds. Loads. I mean, there's still loads of stuff out there. Oh, sorry, but I know we might have to do a part two. We've gone on and on and on. Sorry. Final thoughts. Um, I love that it plays into the absent father trope, you know, um, leaning on the importance of the nuclear family. Alex has an absent father who she saw die at the age of seven, as we know, because it was confirmed in a newspaper report that Dan finds. Uh, so she grew up without a father. Um, but the the idea of the absent father, which is in so many films, a lot of horror films uh and more, but it allows things to go haywire without this steady influence of the man at the head of the nuclear family. Um, particularly in women, she's gone off the rails because this is this is the logic of the film, um, she didn't have a father growing up. Um, and it's led to this abject, abhorrent behaviour, uh, which is you know and her need for a man in her life, a male figure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's true.
SPEAKER_00:To bring her back to that's true.
SPEAKER_01:Oh well, I really hope you guys just enjoyed that. Maybe learnt a thing or two, um, and maybe watch it again through uh yeah, crucially a different a different lens, maybe. Um, okay, so uh I, as ever, we're gonna end with uh little bit of evil for you. It's just an evil quote. I'm gonna turn to philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung, uh, talking about humanity uh generally, and he's using a powerful metaphor here. So this is a quote from him. No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. Oh, I like it. Did you have a wobble? It doesn't have anything to do with the film, but it's yeah, I only heard that recently.
SPEAKER_00:I think that might be my my the shiver might be coming from my roots down in hell. Yeah, down in hell. Your roots are planted firmly.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well. That's it from us. Thanks again. Next time, should we tease our next time? Yeah. Keep in coming back. Let's tease it. What are we doing next time?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we are returning to the 80s, but full on horror this time, and Friday the 13th.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, it's gonna be a good one. It's a classic. Or we'll try and do that on our mics. Okay, until then, God bless.