By now, you’re sure to have heard the phrase “bunny boiler” bandied around. An official part of the cultural lexicon, a bunny boiler is defined as “a woman who acts vengefully after having been spurned by her lover.” This rather derogatory term was born from the psychological thriller film Fatal Attraction, released on September 11, 1987.
The film follows happily-married businessman Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) as he initiates an affair with alluring book editor Alex Forrest (Glenn Close). When Dan discards Alex and returns to his wife and daughter, Alex becomes increasingly unstable, her obsessive behavior escalating until Dan not only fears his family’s discovery of the affair but, more urgently, for their safety.
In the three decades since the film’s release, much has changed in the world of social politics. So how does Fatal Attraction fare in the era of #Timesup and #MeToo, fourth-wave feminism, and paradigm-shifting destigmatization of mental illness?
Reviewing this film today raises questions about the representation of toxic masculinity, trauma, sexual and emotional abuse, and mental illness. Drawing on film noir tropes, there is a blatant villainization of the ‘other woman,' with a cavalier disregard for placing any responsibility at the husband’s door. Dan sits comfortably in victimhood, as though he played no part in the affair. His abusive behavior towards the pregnant Alex in which he grabs her by the throat slut-shames her and angrily asks why she didn’t use contraception would certainly affect today’s audiences differently. Today, Dan seems to exhibit the makings of a villain, or at the very least, certainly not the hero.
Although the critical reception was mixed at the time it was the second-highest grossing movie in America, having spent eight weeks at the top of the box office. A reviewer for The Christian Science Monitor stated in 1987 “the atmosphere of emotional violence is creepy even before it spills into physical mayhem. And supporters of female dignity may rightly howl over the portrait of a woman scorned as a monster unleashed”. The demonizing of female sexuality this film exhibits appears bitter and archaic in 2022, where female sexual empowerment is increasingly normalized through mainstream and social media.
Glenn Close has made it clear in the years since that the role she initially signed up to portray was progressively skewed. Close initially saw the character as a “fundamentally flawed woman who had been damaged by sexual abuse and was now suffering from erotomania” (KQED). Before filming, Close even consulted with mental health professionals to achieve the nuance of behavior in her performance.
In the original script ending, instead of Alex breaking into the family home with murderous intent, it ended with her suicide and Dan’s subsequent arrest for her murder after his fingerprints were found on the knife. The original ending, seeing the destruction of the nuclear family and the desecration of Hollywood’s sweetheart – Michael Douglas – didn’t sit well with test audiences. It was then changed to paint Alex as the psychopath: “they [the audience] got their catharsis by shedding my blood” (Close for KQED).
As a thriller, the first two acts are quite effective, strongly lead by Close’s and Douglas’s performances. There is a nuance that once the third act arrives, seems to have dissipated, slipping into particularly unrefined melodrama. The caricaturing of mental illness in the third act seems to suggest that those with illnesses such as borderline personality disorder are simply one betrayal away from turning into a murderous psychopaths.
Alex is perhaps the most famous cinematic representation of BPD which is 'a psychiatric disorder marked by emotional dysregulation, interpersonal dysfunction, and an unstable self-image’ (In Their Own League). Alex exhibits these symptoms to the most severe degree possible, with a little exposition on her history. Knowledge of the complexities of illnesses such as this is ever-increasing and far more prevalent in the public consciousness. Such caricaturing of BPD would likely be a target for criticism by today’s standards.
Attempts to reboot the story have been ill-fated. A TV series reboot for Fox was said to have been scrapped in 2017 due to issues with casting. They were struggling to find an actor to play Alex. Megan Fox and Jenna Dewan Tatum reportedly turned down the role (The Hollywood Reporter). A stage adaptation in London’s West End found some success, achieving this by retaining the Madam Butterfly-esque ending of Alex’s suicide.
However, Paramount has recently announced a TV reboot starring Joshua Jackson as Dan and Lizzy Caplan as Alex. They have hinted this the series will offer a rebalancing of the narrative. As Jackson suggests: “How else would you update that story other than to give [Close’s] character the fullness of the why?” (Flickering Myth). Close has always championed a retelling of the story from Alex’s perspective. Perhaps this is exactly what the story needs to restore nuance and depth and resonate with audiences of 2023.