Alex Forrest

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Alexandra "Alex" Forrest is the main antagonist in the 1987 live action film Fatal Attraction and its 2023 TV remake.

She was portrayed by Glenn Close in the 1987 film, who also played Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Cruella De Vil in the 1996 live adaptation of 101 Dalmatians, Dr. Caroline Caldwell in The Girl With All the Gifts and Claire Wellington in The Stepford Wives. In the 2023 TV show, she is portrayed by Lizzy Caplan, who also played Reagan Ridley in Inside Job, Tina Greer in Smallville, Annie Wilkes in Castle Rock and Patty Donner in The Cleveland Show.

Biography[]

After a weekend affair with Dan Gallagher (whom she first meets at a party), Alex, who is afflicted with borderline personality disorder, soon develops an obsession with him. When Dan tries to explain to her that he has to leave, so that he can go back to his wife (Beth) and daughter (Ellen), Alex attempts suicide by slashing her wrists.

After helping her bandage the cuts, he then leaves. However, whilst he thinks they can put the affair behind them - and get on with their lives - she starts following him, turning up all over the place. One day, he finds her waiting in his office - where she apologizes to him for her behavior. She then asks him if he would like to go see Madame Butterfly with her (Dan having told her that he likes it); but, Dan politely refuses to go.

She then constantly phones Dan's secretary, up to the point of Dan having no choice but to ask her to stop taking Alex's calls. As well as that, she keeps phoning him at all hours - to which he finally responds, by asking her to meet with him the following day. No, she insisted he meet her..because he refuses to take her calls.

She does so, and Dan asks her to stop calling him. However, Alex says that she is pregnant with Dan's child - and that she intends to keep it. Although he wants nothing to do with Alex, she tells him that he has to take responsibility for his child.

When Dan and Beth's apartment is put up for sale, Alex showed up - on the pretense of being a potential buyer. Later that night, a furious Dan goes to Alex's apartment and confronts her about this - to which she responds that he's stopped taking her calls, he changed his number and that she won't be ignored. However, this all ends up in a violent struggle - in which Alex lunges at him with a knife. Dan pushes Alex away, before leaving.

When Dan moves away, Alex resumes following him: she records a message on a tape, and has it delivered to him. Dan listens to it in the car, and hears Alex's verbal abuse and accusations. She follows him around in a car-park, pours acid all over his car bonnet and even follows him home that night to spy on him and his family.

When she sees him enjoying himself with them - and not her - she vomits, before then leaving. Dan even goes to the police about Alex's unsettling behavior, but is told that the police cannot violate her rights without probable cause - and that the adulterer has to admit his mistake.

When the Gallaghers are not home, Alex breaks into their house and puts Ellen's pet rabbit on the stove, to boil. After this, Dan is forced to admit to Beth about his affair with Alex - and her resultant pregnancy. Outraged, Beth then forces Dan to leave - but not before having Dan call Alex and tell her Beth knows everything. Alex doesn't believe him, but when he puts Beth on the other end, she states who she is and threatens to kill Alex if she ever comes near the Gallagher family again.

Later, without Dan or Beth knowing she has done so, she picks up Ellen from her school and takes her to an amusement park, not only buying her ice-cream but also taking her for a ride on the roller coaster. After a panic-stricken Beth is hospitalized (because of a car-crash, whilst trying to look for Ellen), Ellen is returned safely home - and, after having been asked by Alex to do so, gives Alex a kiss before heading inside.

Really enraged, Dan breaks into Alex's apartment and violently attacks her, even going so far as to start choking her. Just as he stops himself and is about to leave, Alex lunges for him with a knife. Dan manages to overpower her and take the knife from her - but he puts the knife down and leaves, horrified as he sees her smiling at him as he leaves. Dan then goes to the police again, and they start looking for Alex, to bring her in for questioning about Ellen's disappearance.

Later, when Beth (having been released from hospital and having forgiven Dan) is preparing a bath for herself, she looks in the mirror - and sees Alex suddenly standing in the doorway behind her, armed with a knife. She then starts telling Beth the reasoning behind her jealousy of her - and, as she starts nervously fidgeting, cuts her leg with the knife, much to Beth's horror.

Alex then starts attacking Beth with the knife and - having heard Beth's screams - Dan runs up stairs, into the bathroom, and wrestles Alex into the bathtub (when she is trying to slash at him with the knife) and apparently drowns her. However, Alex suddenly rises up from the tub - and is immediately shot by Beth, thus getting killed as she stands in the bathroom doorway.

Trivia[]

In the original ending of the film, after Dan breaking into Alex's apartment and nearly strangling her, Alex takes her own life (by slitting her throat) and frames Dan for murdering her. The police have found Dan's fingerprints on the knife Alex used. Beth finds Alex's tape in which she voices her suicidal thoughts and then leaves the house to give it to the police and clear Dan. However, because of audience outrage at this ending, it was changed to the bathroom scene, instead. Glenn Close admitted that she preferred the original ending and hated the latter.

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