Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Past Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Print Subscriptions
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • About the Academy
    • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts
  • AAPL

User menu

  • Alerts
  • Log out

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
  • AAPL
  • Alerts
  • Log out
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Past Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Print Subscriptions
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • About the Academy
    • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts
Book ReviewBooks and Media

Rashomon, Personality Disorder, and Stalking in a New Fatal Attraction

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online June 2024, 52 (2) 273-274; DOI: https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.240034-24
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading
Based on Fatal Attraction by James Dearden. Developed by Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin Hynes. Paramount+. First episode of eight aired April 30, 2023.Reviewed by Susan Hatters Friedman, MD, and Karen B. Rosenbaum, MD
  • female stalkers
  • borderline personality disorder
  • film
  • stalking

The iconic film Fatal Attraction1 has recently been reimagined into an eight-episode miniseries, 36 years after its 1987 release. For forensic psychiatrists, the modern retelling of Fatal Attraction is of interest becasue of its themes of severe personality disorder being confused with severe mental illness, female stalkers, and Rashomon-style2 storytelling: the idea of different truths experienced based on one’s point of view. In fact, it is specifically in this style of storytelling that retelling this particular story is worthwhile.

Joshua Jackson reimagines the gregarious male lead, Dan Gallagher, updating Michael Douglas’s 1980s character into this millennium. Mr. Jackson is no stranger to Rashomon-style storytelling, having played one of the main characters in The Affair.3,–,5 Lizzy Caplan plays a more nuanced version of Alex Forrest, the femme fatale bunny-boiler6,7 made infamous by Glenn Close’s portrayal. (Ms. Caplan previously starred as sexology pioneer Virginia Johnson in Masters of Sex.8) Amanda Peet completes the love-triangle as Dan’s wife Beth. Both female characters had suffered in the original film from being rather one-dimensional, in contrast to the more fully fleshed out characterizations allowed by the miniseries format. In this update, undertones of feminism and misogyny remain omnipresent.

The series opens as Dan is speaking at his own parole board hearing after being convicted of Alex’s murder 15 years earlier, although no body was ever found. Yet his heart-warming speech about his supposed remorse for the killing was only because he would not have been paroled had he declared his innocence.

The story is told with dual timelines: the present, as Dan is released and trying to reforge a relationship with Beth and his now-grown psychology student daughter while attempting to prove his innocence; and the past affair. (His daughter explains relevant concepts for the lay viewer through her nascent psychology training and her own therapy.) In the past timeline, Dan is a golden boy district attorney in Los Angeles who occasionally binge drinks, and Alex is a recently hired victims’ rights advocate. When Dan is passed over for a judgeship that he thought was in the bag, their whirlwind affair begins. Eventually it is revealed that the emergency sprinklers’ going off in the restaurant, leading to Dan inevitably undressing and drying his clothes in Alex’s apartment, was very much engineered by Alex (though the canny forensic psychiatrist might have suspected as much).

Where the miniseries shines is in portraying the complexity of its two female leads, Alex and Beth, in contrast to the film. The third episode begins the Rashomon-style storytelling. The past timeline that we’ve seen in the first two episodes is turned on its head by showing Alex’s point of view and life experiences. Bunny boiling is replaced by other forms of violence. The two-hour movie’s Alex contrasts with the series, which shows the detritus of other broken romances, her deep loneliness with various frantic efforts to avoid abandonment (including by feigning an overdose), self-harm (with an electric kettle and a cowbell barbell), and flares of intense anger and manipulation. Her trauma history, her relationships with her parents, and her fraught relationship with a former therapist are also eventually revealed.

Later we see the story through Beth’s eyes, another female perspective that the original did not highlight. This Rashomon-style storytelling has the potential benefit of increasing the viewer’s empathy for the choices and plights of the characters and helps to illustrate how Alex’s life might lead her to such a desperate situation. In this revision, Alex is reimagined as a complex character, a whole person, not the evil monster audiences loved to hate in the original. Alex shares characteristics commonly found in studies of real-world female stalkers,9 such as being single, educated, employed, demonstrating borderline traits, threats, and stalking a known victim. While she begins as an (undetected) intimacy-seeking stalker, she morphs into a rejected stalker after their affair’s abrupt ending, which in itself was perpetuated by her own fears of abandonment.

Ms. Caplan met with a forensic psychiatrist in preparation for the series role.10 The original film has been a useful touch-point for teaching about severe personality disorder, but also of confusion in the lay public regarding mental health.7 A decade ago, Ms. Close had described regret regarding the 1987 portrayal playing into stigma.11 Fascinatingly, it was only after the original movie’s filming and viewing by test audiences that Alex was portrayed as so very predatory, with Beth losing her career as a teacher and being “transformed into the complete Victorian hearth angel” (Ref. 12, p133). Misunderstandings of the Alex character as “psychotic,”13 perhaps related to gendered perceptions of mental illness, as well as misunderstandings about insanity defenses, have real-world implications for court cases involving mental illness, as well as implications for stigma and prejudice against people with mental illness.

Footnotes

  • Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.

  • © 2024 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

References

  1. 1.↵
    1. Dearden J
    . Fatal Attraction [motion picture]. Lynbe A, director. Paramount Pictures; 1987
  2. 2.↵
    1. Kurosawa A
    . Rashomon [motion picture]. Kurosawa A, director. Japan: Daiei Film; 1950
  3. 3.↵
    1. Treem S,
    2. Levi H
    . The Affair. Showtime; 2014-2018
  4. 4.↵
    1. Forcen FE,
    2. Rosenbaum K,
    3. Friedman SH
    . Showtime’s The Affair: The Rashomon effect, eyewitness testimony, and lack of reliability in homicide. Australas Psychiatry. 2020; 28(4):431–2
    OpenUrl
  5. 5.↵
    1. Rosenbaum K,
    2. Friedman SH
    . Review of Showtime’s The Affair. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 2019; 47(1):130–1
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
  6. 6.↵
    1. Cerny CA,
    2. Friedman SH,
    3. Smith D
    . Television’s “crazy lady” trope: Female psychopathic traits, teaching, and influence of popular culture. Acad Psychiatry. 2014; 38(2):233–41
    OpenUrlPubMed
  7. 7.↵
    1. Friedman SH
    . 10 myths about mental illness in crime fiction: An examination by a forensic psychiatrist. Med Page Today [Internet]; 2023 April 5. Available from: https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/popmedicine/103878. Accessed December 12, 2023
  8. 8.↵
    1. Ashford M
    . Masters of Sex. Showtime; 2013-2016
  9. 9.↵
    1. West S,
    2. Friedman SH
    . These boots were made for stalking: Characteristics of female stalkers. Psychiatry (Edgemont). 2008; 5(8):37–42
    OpenUrl
  10. 10.↵
    1. Strause J
    . Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan on ‘Fatal Attraction’ hesitations and ‘tricky balancing act’ of revisiting Alex Forrest. The Hollywood Reporter [Internet]; 2023 May 3. Available from: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/fatal-attraction-series-joshua-jackson-lizzy-caplan-interview-1235477935/. Accessed December 12, 2023
  11. 11.↵
    1. Garrett M
    . Glenn Close would play ‘Fatal Attraction’ differently now. CBS News [Internet]; 2013 June 3. Available from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glenn-close-would-play-fatal-attraction-differently-now/. Accessed December 12, 2023
  12. 12.↵
    1. Faludi S.
    Backlash, the Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Random House, 1991
  13. 13.↵
    1. Hale M
    . ‘Fatal Attraction’ review: Here’s why she did it. New York Times [Internet]; 2023 April 26. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/arts/television/fatal-attraction-review.html. Accessed December 12, 2023
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online: 52 (2)
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
Vol. 52, Issue 2
1 Jun 2024
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in recommending The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law site.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Rashomon, Personality Disorder, and Stalking in a New Fatal Attraction
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Rashomon, Personality Disorder, and Stalking in a New Fatal Attraction
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Jun 2024, 52 (2) 273-274; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.240034-24

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Rashomon, Personality Disorder, and Stalking in a New Fatal Attraction
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Jun 2024, 52 (2) 273-274; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.240034-24
del.icio.us logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

  • Review of Anatomy of a Fall
  • A Forensic Review of Juror #2
  • Bright Young Women, Serial Killers, and the 1970s
Show more Books and Media

Similar Articles

Keywords

  • female stalkers
  • borderline personality disorder
  • film
  • stalking

Site Navigation

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive
  • Information for Authors
  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts

Other Resources

  • Academy Website
  • AAPL Meetings
  • AAPL Annual Review Course

Reviewers

  • Peer Reviewers

Other Publications

  • AAPL Practice Guidelines
  • AAPL Newsletter
  • AAPL Ethics Guidelines
  • AAPL Amicus Briefs
  • Landmark Cases

Customer Service

  • Cookie Policy
  • Reprints and Permissions
  • Order Physical Copy

Copyright © 2025 by The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law