Screenplay by James Dearden - Directed by Adrian Lyne
LOGLINE
NYC lawyer Dan meets sexy publisher Alex and decides to have some fun, while his wife and kid are away. Alex, however, doesn't see the encounter as a simple one-night stand. She will claim Dan for herself, more and more aggressively.
SYNOPSIS
Lawyer Dan meets beautiful Alex in a NYC book publishing party and they are attracted to each other. Dan is a happy husband and father, but he obviously hasn't seen much excitement since his daughter was born.
While his wife and kid are away for a house viewing at the suburbs, Dan bumps into Alex, again, and they end up in bed. And kitchen. And elevator. Dan sneaks back home, early the next morning, thinking that this is the end of a clean, hush-hush one-night stand.
To his surprise, the next day, Alex invites him to spend the day together like a couple. In the afternoon, when Dan gets up to leave, again, Alex becomes aggressive, reaching the point of slitting her own wrists, to make him stay. Dan, eventually, does stay, to take care of her, and leaves in the morning. It all seems to be the end of it. Again.
Dan gets back to becoming a zealous family man. He agrees in buying a house in the suburbs, he is affectionate with his wife, he plays with his daughter... His little misstep has made him appreciate what he has. When Alex appears at his office to apologise and ask him out again, he sticks to his guns, telling her that it is all over.
Alex starts calling repeatedly, until she gets Dan to meet her. She reveals that she is pregnant with his child and asks him to be a responsible father. When she appears in front of Dan's wife as a potential buyer for their apartment, Dan bullies her into stopping harassing him and his family.
Coming back from the grandparents' house, the family finds their pet rabbit boiling on the stove, which makes Dan reveal everything to his wife. She kicks him out of the house.
Alex takes Dan's daughter from school, driving his wife crazy and making her crash her car. The accident brings the couple together again. Dan has a violent confrontation with Alex, at her apartment, but he prefers to tell everything to the police, instead of killing her.
Alex attacks Dan's wife, but eventually the wife kills her. Dan gets his family back. And a good lesson.
STEP OUTLINE
ACT I
A. THE MEETING
Dan, a NYC lawyer in his early forties, and Beth, his wife, get ready for a party. The babysitter arrives, taking care of their daughter, Ellen.
In the party, Dan meets with a friendly couple, Hildy and Jimmy. Being alone with Dan, Jimmy makes a crude attempt to hit on Alex, a slim blonde book editor with a dark look, but she turns her back and walks off.
Moments later, Dan finds himself next to Alex and they exchange a few words. The meeting turns out to be a brief one, as Dan's wife calls him and they leave the party together.
Back home, Beth reminds Dan that he can't sleep without taking the dog for a walk. Returning from the walk, though, little Ellen has occupied their bed, "only for tonight," as Beth says. Sex is something that obviously doesn't happen very often in this family environment.
The protagonist of this sequence is Dan. He has the unconscious objective to find some excitement, inside or outside the family environment. Antagonists to this are his wife and kid -his dog, too!- who keep him domesticated and unsatisfied.
B. THE ONE-NIGHT STAND
On Saturday, Beth and the kid travel to the suburbs, to view a house, leaving Dan alone for a day and a night. Dan and Beth argue on whether they should buy the house or not.
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| Dan waving his family goodbye. A weekend of excitement is about to begin... |
Dan attends a business meeting, where he sees Alex, again. Dan is asked to defend a book author who has been accused that her character is based on a real politician. During the meeting, they are obviously attracted to each other.
Sequence's catalyst: After work, she offers him her umbrella and they go for a drink.
The drink turns into a lunch. Dan tells her a story about how her mother asked him to represent her against his father, during their divorce. Alex cuts to the chase, openly flirting with him.
Cut to: her place, having wild sex. Afterwards, Alex asks exhausted Dan to go dancing. This super-energetic woman is probably something that family man Dan can't easily keep up with.
After returning from the latin club, they have some public sex, pausing the elevator in between floors.
This sequence's protagonist is Alex, who wants to have sex with Dan. (This, we will see, is part of her super-objective, which is to have her own husband and family.) The antagonist is Dan, who flirts a little, but hesitates to cross the line. Crossing this very line gets Dan to the new world of the story's second act.
ACT II
C. THE RELATIONSHIP
Dan leaves Alex's apartment early in the morning, heading home. He gets a voice message from Beth and calls her back. He finds it difficult to answer her simple and innocent questions and tries hard to lie about where he has been. Unsuspecting Beth says she will have to stay one more day at the suburbs, in order to view the house. This is a convenient dramatic device that will allow Dan to see Alex again, very soon.
Sequence's catalyst: Alex calls, asking Dan to come over. Dan tries to avoid it, but he eventually does.
Dan and Alex walk the dog at the Central Park. When he fakes a heart attack, she stuns him, saying that her father has died of one. Then, she reveals that this is also a fake story, making him feel stupid.
They cook together at her place, listening to Madam Butterfly. Dan opens his heart, telling Alex about his father and about how he was terrified by Madam Butterfly's tale of suicide. As they eat, Alex gets serious: despite Dan's marriage, she wants to see him again. Dan refuses, putting forth his marriage as the excuse.
After sex, Dan gets dressed to leave. Alex wants to make him stay and she even rips his shirt violently, to achieve this. Dan stresses out that "she knew the rules" but Alex doesn't see any of that. She eventually kicks him out of the bed, giving him the impression that this is the end.
Just as Dan is about to walk out the door, Alex appears to tell him goodbye, but her wrists are slit. Dan takes care of her wounds and stays.
At night, while Alex lies in bed with bandaged wrists, Dan calls his wife trying to sound normal. Beth sounds excited about the house she has seen in the suburbs.
Dan stays with Alex until the morning. (Alex achieves her goal, after all!) Dan says goodbye and asks Alex to go and see the doctor.
The sequence's protagonist is Alex, who wants to spend the day with Dan, like an ordinary couple, walking the dog, eating together, and making love. Dan is the antagonist, who hesitates, wanting to painlessly get back to his married life.
D. BACK TO HIS FAMILY
Back to his home, he prepares for his wife's return. He sets up the house as if he has stayed in it for the past two days, undoing the bed and feeding his spaghetti to the dog.
He shows up in the office very early, to his secretary's surprise, in order to catch up with his business.
His family returns. He hugs his wife passionately. "I should go away more often", Beth says.
He plays card games with his daughter. His wife tells him that the house in the suburbs is perfect. (It even has a place for rabbits, says little Ellen, excited.) Dan happily surprises his wife when he proposes to go and visit the house, the following day, during lunch break.
Indeed, they view the house. At start, Dan is hesitant, but eventually loves it. "This is a terrific area for kids," says the real estate agent, not knowing how these words will pay off later.
Dan gets particularly excited when he sees the attic. "This will make a terrific playroom," says Beth, to which Dan answers: "What are you talking about, playroom? This is my den!" Dan is a child, after all.
Coming back from lunch, Dan finds Alex waiting for him in his office. She apologises and proposes him to go to the opera, Madam Butterfly, together. Dan calmly refuses. (Note: This is also the second time colleague Jimmy sees Alex, remembering her from the party.)
Intercutting between: Alex, alone in her home, listening to the opera, and Dan, scoring at bowling with his wife and friends.
The sequence's protagonist is Dan, who wants to be a good family man, hiding his secret adventure. The biggest part of this sequence keeps our interest through suspense, as we expect Alex to reappear anytime. Indeed, she does, but Dan seems to be strong enough to refuse her call.
E. THE PHONE CALLS
Dan's boss, satisfied by his performance, invites him for a business lunch.
Alex calls Dan at his office. Dan tells her that he doesn't want them to talk to each other again. Afterwards, he instructs his secretary to refuse all of Alex's calls.
Dan observes his wife, while she is getting dressed, getting excited seeing her in her underwear. The doorbell interrupts.
Dan and Beth have their friends, Jimmy and his wife, for dinner. They talk about Dan's upcoming promotion. (The jokes Jimmy makes about marriage and family are extremely ironic in relation to Dan's recent adventure.) Then, the phone rings. (This is the sequence's catalyst. Alex starts calling at Dan's apartment.) Dan watches in terror, as his wife picks it up. Nobody speaks.
Alex calls in the middle of the night. Dan picks it up. She is aggressive and even mocks him, as he pretends that he is talking to a colleague. She demands a meeting for the next day.
When they meet, the following day, Alex reveals that she is pregnant. Dan softens, offering to pay for an abortion, but Alex doesn't want one. She wants to keep the baby and have Dan face his fatherly responsibilities.
Dan sits at home with his family. He listens to his wife playing with his daughter.
When Alex is not there, Dan breaks into her apartment and goes through her things. Early Pregnancy Test kit; Madame Butterfly program; some random drawings; an article on her father's death of heart attack when he was 42.
In the library, Dan confides everything to Jimmy, asking for advice on family law. Dan says, "I'm scared. I don't want to loose my family," meaning it in a legal context. (Very soon, Dan will find himself fighting to keep his family alive in a much more primal meaning.)
Alex calls Dan, but the number has changed. She gets furious and shouts at the operator.
Dan goes home and finds Alex sitting in the living room with his wife, as a potential buyer for their apartment. They pretend they don't know each other and Beth gives Alex their new number, to Dan's dismay. This scene has strong ironic tension, because of the unsuspecting wife.
Dan goes to Alex's place, to make her leave him alone. Alex warns him that she will not stop until Dan faces his responsibilities, as father of her child. She attempts to scare him by calling his wife, but she hangs up the moment she hears her voice.
If we simply say that Alex is dangerously psychotic, we dismiss her, thus missing a lot of her depth. "I don't know what you're up to..." says Dan. He constantly thinks that Alex is plotting something to harm him (even long before she actually does so) and refuses to see the truth: that Alex, above all, is a woman in need of love. "You're so sad. You're lonely and very sad" he tells her, only to add "I pity you, because you're sick." Her argument is amazing: "Why? Because I won't allow you to treat me like some slut that you just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage?" Her madness is founded on real human emotion and this is why, even if she is the villain, we are surprised to find in ourselves streaks of empathy for her, too.
The protagonist of this long sequence is Alex, who besieges Dan with her phone calls (first to his office and then to his home), wanting to tell him about her pregnancy and to ask him to be a part of the miracle. Dan makes it clear that he has no intention of doing so. There is a couple of scenes where Dan drives the action (breaking into Alex's apartment and asking Jimmy for friendly/legal advice), but mostly it is Alex pursuing and Dan avoiding. He refuses her calls and blocks the number, but the result is opposite to his expectations: Alex comes to his place in person. After the last scene of the sequence, we have no doubt about what Alex is after: a family of her own, with Dan as the father. This is, in fact, the super-objective of Alex: to be a wife and mother.
F. THE RABBIT
Dan and Beth move into the house in the suburbs. The phone rings, but Dan is relieved to find it is not Alex calling.
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| "It's Martha!" Thank God! |
The ringing phone as a motif of horror is brought back from the previous sequence, but only as a false alarm. As we will see, Alex has moved on.
Dan calls Beth: he has bought a rabbit, as a surprise for his daughter. On his way out of the office, his secretary gives him a small package, which has arrived for him.
Dan goes to pick up his car from the lot, but he doesn't see Alex hiding there. He finds the hood of his Volvo trashed with acid.
He hires a car and drives away, while Alex follows him with her own car. On the way, Dan opens the package: a tape that reads "PLAY ME - Alex". It's her voice, accusing him, asking him to take his responsibilities, calling him a faggot. Dan reaches his house. Once there, through the windows, Alex watches the whole family, for the first time. And gets sick.
This is the sequence's catalyst. Alex realizes that Dan's family is what stops him and her from being together. A plot starts to form in her head, to get Beth and the kid out of the way.
In the middle of the night, in his "den," Dan listens to the tape, with headphones. "You're afraid of me," says Alex's voice. His wife sneaks up on him, giving him a big, unintentional scare.
Dan goes to the police, pretending that he is representing a client who has trouble with a woman. The policeman says that only if they catch her in the act they can press charges. "It's his bed. I'm afraid he's going to have to lie on it."
Dan and his family get ready to visit his in-laws. They leave the rabbit in its cage, in the garden.
In the grandparents' house, Dan gets emotional watching his daughter rehearse a part for the school play. He gives her a strong hug.
When they return home, Beth finds the rabbit dead, boiling on the stove.
Alex violently brings the wife and the kid in the picture. Until now she has only been asking for Dan to be her man. Now, though, she makes clear that she is capable of destroying Dan's family, in order to get him from them.
Dan decides to tell his wife everything about Alex. She tells him to leave.
Dan packs. He calls Alex, at Beth's presence, telling her that Beth knows everything. Beth speaks to Alex: "If you come near my family again, I'll kill you," a dangling cause paid off at the end of the film.
Again, the sequence's protagonist is Alex. She pursues Dan and kills his daughter's pet, as a warning of his family's destruction. And, indeed, she manages to disrupt Dan's family: Beth kicks Dan out of the house. On the other hand, her action makes Dan face his responsibilities; not towards Alex and her unborn child, but towards his own family. Dan tells Beth all about his affair, something that "needs balls," as Alex says. This long chase has finally made a man out of Dan, a transformation that marks the end of the film's second act.
ACT III
G. ALEX IS AFTER THE KID
Dan has settled in a hotel room. He calls home and talks to his daughter, but not his wife.
Sequence's catalyst: Beth goes to school to pick up little Ellen, only to find that someone has already picked her up. She panics.
Beth drives around looking for Ellen. / Meanwhile, Alex has picked up Ellen and taken her to the rollercoaster. / Beth drives around desperate and crashes with another car. / Alex leaves Ellen back to her house, safe and sound.
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| "Ellen, can I have a kiss?" Alex explores the mother role,while at the same time pushes Beth out of her place in Dan's family |
Dan goes to the hospital to see his wife. He cries, holding her hand.
The crash is the dramatic device that brings Dan and his wife together again. It stands on the borderline of being some form of deus ex machina, but it gets away with it, since it happens because Alex takes the kid.
Dan drives to Alex's place and attacks her. They fight violently. He almost strangles her, when he suddenly stops, not wanting to become a murderer. She strikes back with a kitchen knife, but Dan disarms her and leaves.
Very upset, Dan goes to the police and tells them the truth about the whole thing. The lieutenant says that they will bring Alex in for questioning.
The sequence's protagonists are Beth (first half) and Dan (second half). Their objective is to protect their family against Alex.
H. ALEX IS AFTER THE WIFE
Dan tucks Ellen in bed. He promises her that he will be with her and Beth.
Dan speaks with the police and finds out that Alex is missing. As he speaks, Dan checks in a drawer and sees his gun.
Dan gets some painkillers for Beth, as she gets ready to have a bath. When Dan leaves the bathroom, Alex appears with a knife and attacks Beth. Dan hears the screams, comes upstairs, and drowns Alex in the bathtub. Or so he thinks. When he lowers his guard, Alex jumps out, wielding her kitchen knife. Beth is there, though, with Dan's gun, and shoots Alex dead, paying off the words she has told her: "if you come near my family again, I'll kill you."
The police clears the scene and Dan is left alone with his family. He hugs Beth and the camera closes in on a framed family photo. Dan manages to get his family back together.
The final sequence's protagonist is Alex, again. The whole sequence is about her attack against Beth and Dan.
THE END
