Word: bethe
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...ending works, though, not only as a jolt for the audience but also in resolving the drama on its own perfervid terms. Once Alex, the nightmare shrew, has threatened the dream family, she must be faced down by the family. Once Dan has sinned, only Beth can forgive him, by saving his life. Once Alex has invaded the home, she must be killed by the homemaker; the Wife must destroy the Other Woman...
...least not the John Wayne movie man. He is a soft guy in a tough spot. Even after Alex boils Ellen's pet rabbit on the country cottage stove, Dan cannot inform Beth that he and Alex were lovers; Beth has to elicit the fact by asking him directly. The women have the cojones in this picture. It is Beth who will earn the movie's first cheer when she tells Alex, "If you ever come near my family again, I'll kill you, you understand?" And Alex who will take Beth up on her dare, swiping Ellen from school...
Back in the cottage, while Dan makes tea downstairs, Beth prepares her bath. With her robe she erases steam from the bathroom mirror. Alex is standing behind her, carrying a knife. Softly, she asks Beth, "What are you doing here?" In her frayed mind she may already be Mrs. Dan Gallagher, her hubby in the kitchen, their imminent child asleep in her womb. Who is this presumptuous intruder in Alex's dream cottage? Someone who doesn't deserve to play happy family. Someone who deserves to die. Their struggle for the knife finally alerts Dan, who rushes upstairs, overpowers Alex...
There is just one little problem. In killing Alex, Beth also kills the child -- Dan's child -- inside her. The first wife saves her family by destroying the potential family of the woman who wanted to be Dan's second wife. One woman movie executive, who is disgusted by Fatal Attraction's message, offers this bitter coda: "Dan and Beth should be put on trial for the murder of Alex's unborn child...
...critical standard, Fatal Attraction is no masterpiece. The plot has holes you could drive Beth's station wagon through. (How does Alex get Ellen out of school? Why didn't the family dog bark when Alex breaks into the Gallagher house? Why can't Dan hear the final struggle a floor above him, and why does the bathroom tile floor leak water?) The threat to Ellen's pet rabbit can be smelled three reels away from payoff; that hare is high. Lyne's visual style, with its grab bag of slick thrills and cheap tricks, is clever but unoriginal -- hack...