Fatal Attraction (1987) is turned on its head, with the obsessive here being a violent husband who just won’t let his wife go.
Julia Roberts plays the abused spouse, who stages her own death to escape a marriage from hell with Patrick Bergin. She begins a new life under an assumed identity and meets nice Kevin Anderson, but her crazed husband is never far behind.
This was Roberts’s bid for grittier material and she acquits herself rather well while Bergin relishes his role as the bad guy.
Director Joseph Ruben established his reputation with this sort of thriller, and, although he never attains the scare factor of his earlier The Stepfather, he still manages some chilling sequences, but too few to really sustain the interest throughout.
Laura Burney/Sara Waters
Julia Roberts
Martin Burney
Patrick Bergin
Ben Woodward
Kevin Anderson
Chloe
Elizabeth Lawrence
Fleishman
Kyle Secor
Dr Rissner
Claudette Nevins
Locke
Tony Abatemarco
Julie
Marita Geraghty
Garber
Harley Venton
Edna
Sandi Shackelford
Mrs Nepper
Bonnie Cook
Minister
Graham Harrington
Sharon
Sharon J Robinson
Director
Joseph Ruben
