Unfaithful and Fatal Attraction: The Endings Debacle
What is it about Adrian Lyne and controversy over the endings to his films? His newest film now showing in theaters, Unfaithful, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane, in an Oscar worthy performance, underwent a battle between the director and the studio, 20th Century Fox, that reminded me a lot about the alternate ending history on another film classic about adultery by Lyne, the 1987 classic Fatal Attraction. Thankfully, Lyne stuck with his original ending this time, creating a thoughtful human drama that finally pays the audience the compliment of giving them a film to think about and ponder instead of some film that wraps everything up nice and easy.
I was amazed and dumbfounded when I heard that 20th Century Fox had tried to convince Adrian Lyne to reshoot the ending to Unfaithful, because they felt the ending was too ambiguous, and it should have been a simpler ending. Lyne struggled to keep the ambiguous ending, as he gives the audience much more credit than film studios often do. Lyne explained, "I hate it when things are tied up so neatly and are so predictable that audiences stop talking about the movie the moment they hit the parking lot. The ending as it is now will cause a great deal more discussion and that's what I want for my films. It is a movie about adultery and revenge. By nature it has to be controversial."
Lyne is absolutely correct. Not only did he shoot a wonderfully ambiguous ending that makes you wonder about the future of this married couple after all they have endured, but he also did not provide a nice easy explanation as to why Diane Lane's character becomes involved in a dangerous, risky affair. Diane Lane gave an absolutely stunning performance, the best of her career, portraying this woman who appears to be happy in her marriage, but falls into an affair seemingly so easy.
Lyne was able to portray the reality of infidelity beautifully in this way, because a lot of the times there appears to be no reason why one of the spouses in a marriage has an affair ... there could be nothing wrong or missing, but perhaps it's the excitement that's missing. Lyne allows the audience to ponder these questions, and in this age of huge movie blockbusters heavy on plot, I'm glad to see directors like Lyne still giving us thoughtful human dramas that we can discuss over and over long after the film is over.
Latest Articles