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Fatal Attraction
Metascore
67 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 16
  3. Negative: 1 out of 16
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  1. Variety
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    90
    The screws are tightened expertly in this suspenseful meller about a flipped-out femme who makes life hell for the married man who scorns her.
  2. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Hal Hinson
    90
    This is a spectacularly well-made thriller. It is an odd thing, really -- the movie is sexy and at the same time a warning about the costs of sex.
  3. Empire
    Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    80
    Two absolutely riveting performances and a smart reversal of the usual male-female stalker scenario leave behind a nasty taste and an unforgettable cinema experience.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Janet Maslin
    80
    Mr. Lyne takes a brilliantly manipulative approach to what might have been a humdrum subject and shapes a soap opera of exceptional power.
  5. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    80
    Well-made fictions like Fatal Attraction prosper because they seem more persuasive than fact.
  6. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Howe
    80
    Fatal Attraction rings the changes on your atavistic emotions. Walking out of the theater, you might have a sudden desire to club a woolly mammoth and hide your family in a dark cave -- away from people like Glenn Close.
  7. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Johanna Steinmetz
    75
    Lyne indulges in baroque touches-he is fond of open-grate elevators and water, be it rain or from faucets-but mostly he tells the story in well- tailored vignettes that range from horrifying to humorous. [21 Sep 1987, p.5]
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  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    75
    One of the most effective thrillers in years, Attraction did an excellent job of mixing its suspense with trendy issues of sexual paranoia and monogamy. [27 Dec 1987, p.19]
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  9. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    75
    This story of an extramarital fling that turns into a nightmare begins as a well-crafted psychological thriller but degenerates into a misogynistic thrill-fest in its closing moments.
  10. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    75
    Fatal Attraction becomes as seductive as the seduction it depicts. In the always stylish, sometimes careless hands of director Adrian Lyne, the film lures us in with an artful blend of stately pacing and caressing close-ups and brooding silences. [23 Sep 1987 p.C7]
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  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    70
    Passion, obsession, mad love, the violent clash of insider and outsider-all these themes, plus the performances, are rich enough to carry us past that wounded climax, if not to carry the movie past the fatal attractions of the big box-office cliche. [18 Sep 1987, p.1]
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  12. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    Fatal Attraction is a spellbinding psychological thriller that could have been a great movie if the filmmakers had not thrown character and plausibility to the winds in the last minutes to give us their version of a grown-up "Friday the 13th."
  13. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    63
    The style is slick, the action is suspenseful, and despite the explicitness of the sex scenes, the message is against extramarital affairs.
  14. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Julie Salamon
    60
    Mr. Lyne is able to make things look the way they're supposed to look because he trained in the television-commercial world. But he has a hard time getting beneath the gloss. [17 Sep 1987, p.1]
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  15. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    40
    While billed as a romance and a thriller, the film strictly qualifies as neither, appealing to our prurience, guilt, hatred, and dread.
  16. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Michael Blowen
    25
    Adrian Lyne pulls out more manipulative nonsense than Machiavelli ever thought of. Lyne stops at nothing to provoke artificial sentimental feelings from the audience. Like the movie itself, the audience's reaction is only skin deep. [18 Sep 1987, p.58]
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 8 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. lasttimeisaw
    6
    I made a promise to watch more Oscar-nominated performances from Glenn Close after ALBERT NOBBS (2011), the first one is this notoriously famous thriller-drama from the genre hotshot Adrian Lyne. The narrative is straightforward and rather inevitable. First of all, the film never fail to keep the appearance engaging and captivating while bypassing a severe flaw in its avowed mantra, it always takes two persons to exert an immoral affair, but eventually the punishment usually always falls on the woman, even grants a pretext of psychopath, a tacky happy ending does fling an anticlimax and one might find himself stuck in a moot situation, who we should feel more sympathetic? So, the moral support is preferably unstable, the film fulfills an educational motive and emblematizes itself as an immaculate prototype of monogamic conformity and a wake-up call to warn all the horny married-man. However the real gem lies in the sterling cast, which has been against all odds to generate a great deal of fidelity to stimulate the flares of lust, possession and destruction (frilled with a somewhat pretentious family value). Close and Archer both received their Oscar nominations, Lyne’s female fixation works out properly and both actresses manage to wrestle with their largely conventional roles and excel themselves in a better-than-expected anticipation. Close is on her best form in portraying the maniac other woman, with a menacing charisma until the breakdown. Douglas is typecast and stays put in his comfort zone. The set pieces are sturdily devised even though it seems to be a lowdown trick involving an ambiguous pregnancy, nevertheless the finale showdown is masterfully done, the bathroom confrontation has a thoroughgoing suspense and marks the genuine craftsmanship from director Adrian Lyne. So a 6/10 is a medium rating which is hampered by an outmoded moral criterion judging by the opinions of today, but still a pleasant piece of work worthy of more attention.… Full Review »
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