The studios’ mania for rummaging through their catalog to recycle intellectual property at their disposal is not a problem in itself. Inseparable by Alice Birch, which takes David Cronenberg’s title as a reference, is a fantastic example of a work that finds a way to reinterpret the material, processing it through a look that is as cloudy as it is feminine (and on this website a passionate critique is owed to the Serie). But Fatal Attraction, which Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin J. Hynes have adapted for television, struggles from the start to justify its existence, both for those familiar with Glenn Close’s iconic performance and for those who may be drawn to its point. Starting point: family man lives through hell when he is harassed by his torrid lover.
The first scenes, as well as the structure, aim to distance this Fatal Attraction from the one directed by Adrian Lyne. Dan Gallagher is in prison for the murder of Alex Forrest, a fellow professional who tried to destroy his life after a brief extramarital affair. This time it is Joshua Jackson (Fringe) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of sex) who bring the characters to life. Through time jumps, the viewer can see how that relationship began, how it turned into such an untenable situation that she ended up murdered and how he, according to his version of events, was the victim of her libertine sexual licences.
On paper, both Jackson and Caplan are the ideal actors to lead the project: he evokes a grown-up physique and she has an always suggestive look. But, except for when Alex and Dan meet in the elevator, their chemistry suffers when it comes to conveying eroticism. The reason is the visual invoice and the rhythm that Cunningham and the director Silver Tree create for the narrative, more interested in anchoring the story in a kind of true crime based on a fictional story than in adopting its own personality. The first three episodes, the ones that have aired on SkyShowtime so far, bring absolutely nothing new in terms of character introductions, even taking more time for introspection.
In fact, the most interesting thing about seeing Joshua Jackson in this project is that, when fiction decides to tell the story from Alex’s point of view, Fatal Attraction becomes a kind of reinterpretation of The affair, a series in which he participated the actor, who was characterized as an adult drama about infidelity, leisurely and with a dose of thriller. But the absence of steamy scenes makes viewer engagement difficult, just as time jumps slow the pace.
And, despite the fact that those responsible indicated the need to recontextualize Alex to give her more complexity beyond “the crazy woman on duty” that the patriarchy uses so much to invalidate the experience of women, there is no real attempt to redefine the character or give it nuances. It’s okay as Fatal Attraction owes the addictiveness of the story to Alex’s disturbing sanity. But this lack of a look of its own does not contribute to raising a series that, in short, is boring, the last thing a sexual thriller can afford.
