I have a new recommendation for anyone who’s dealing with the deep-seated psychological repercussions of having been heavily manipulated by a person who was or is important to you: watch a fuckton of thrillers! Okay, this may be a treatment specific to people who have more time than any one individual can generally hope for, and I won’t fall into that category after today. My job orientation starts tomorrow, a 3-day 9-4 affair followed by MFA orientation + welcome events that will take me through the week. After that, I’m officially an MFA candidate who also tutors every hour that I can. There will be no time for theraputic movie marathons.
But there is right now. And it’s frankly too hot to do much else besides process my issues through hours of movies, so I’ve got some reviews for you. There’s one thing that these films all have in common, and that is absolutely palatial homes and gorgeous interior design. Around Thriller #3 I started to wonder why that was. My current theory is that it’s only fun to watch twists and turns wreck lives if said lives were perfect. It’s not a sadistic “revel in their downfall,” thing, though: it’s the simple fact that if these characters didn’t know if they were gonna make rent next month, watching their loved ones reveal themselves to be criminal masterminds would be a fucking stressful viewing experience. Not heart-racing horror anticipatory but just “ugh I don’t NEED this” stressful.
Thankfully, Chloe’s principal characters are astronomically wealthy, though we’re not actually sure of the economic tier that the titular prostitute Chloe occupies. Given her clothing, manner, literary vocabulary, and comfort around rich people, it’s highly unlikely that she grew up anything but solidly-secure. Assuming she chose her career, though, why? What other passions does she have besides “disappearing” into seduction games? The film doesn’t concern itself with these questions, unfortunately. The point is you’ve got three crazy hot people — Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, and the hypnotic Amanda Seyfried — and some shit goes down. I really can’t say much more without spoiling the “plot” such as it is, but upon reflection, for a thriller, even an erotic one, this movie has little in the way of plot. It’s less a thriller, really, than a classic melodrama. But if you’re in the mood for highly complicated marital dynamics, a hot professor faking modesty, gorgeous sexy women being sexy and gorgeous together, phenomenal interior design, feminine elegance, lovely lingerie, and a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, few films will do you better.
Next I watched Fatale, which should definitely net an award for Worst Title. It isn’t great, but it sure is watchable, because once again, holy shit, a transcendentally beautiful cast, including but not limited to Michael Early and Damaris Lewis. Early plays a highly successful sports agent so of course he and his wife live in the most beautiful apartment you’ve ever seen, and of course it’s wrecked by a break-in, and of course we think we know who did it but we’re wrong, but then twists and turns and then we’re kinda right! But not the way we thought! Stressful. Effective. Brutal fight scenes. A fantastic soundtrack.
Then I watched Inheritance. The palatial homes in this movie are less emotionally stirring because it’s about a wealthy elite white family so everything sterile as fuck. Which makes for an appropriately haunting atmosphere before we even realize the depths to which the women in this family are haunted. I didn’t love the twist in this thriller’s thriller but I did cry, which was satisfying.
The next day I watched Fatal Affair. I love this movie to bits-upon-bits. For one thing, it’s about fucking time we updated the gender dynamics in Fatal Attraction, which Fatale did not do, because everybody loves crazy women scary-obsessed with hot d00ds, but men go crazy too, really fucking crazy, and the most insidious of them pull off Perfect Boyfriend quite beautifully before the mask falls off and you’re running for your life (um, or so I hear), and now we’ve got that in the form of an old college friend with a double-decade-long crush whose “anger management issues” are a bit more than that, and whose character is watchable because he’s not just an obsessed narcissistic stalker, he’s also deeply intelligent, a hacker. I like my obsessed narcissistic stalkers smart, because that way you remain morbidly intrigued by their horrible plans. Oh, and the main character, a successful lawyer, just moved with her family to a home with a private beach. Talk about palatial! She moved from San Francisco where her old firm was, so I was also suddenly hit with some undeniably mesmerizing shots of the city that I was not emotionally prepared for. If you’ve got me “awww!”-ing about the Salesforce building, then you’ve caught me in a fucking mood. But I wouldn’t be having a thriller marathon, presumably, were this not the case.
Then I watched Missing, pleased to see Nia Long again whom I had just viewer-fallen-for by watching her in Fatal Affair. Missing is SO GOOD, I cannot do it justice, it is the one movie on this list that is objectively great. It does not rely on melodrama, steamy sex scenes, or next-level hotness of its cast to be great. It is just great. Wildly creative without being gimmicky. Uniquely current in a way that made me thankful to be alive in this age. A fucking stunner all the way through.
I hope to watch two more thrillers today. I will tell you how they were, if you care, but I try not to make too many assumptions about what my readers care about. Sometimes I feel like I know you, sometimes I feel like I can’t possibly really know why you’re here, but whatever your reasons (if “reasons” they are), I am immensely grateful for, in particular, moments that you stick with me when I’m caught by whims like “ramble on about my burgeoning love for thrillers” that have nothing to do with the Theme of this Substack. Remember that dude who publicly unsubscribed because he deemed Hot and Disabled a “random directionless bubble”?
Well, joke’s on us all, ‘cause Rob was right. My life is no longer a randomless directionless bubble, however, and it would appear that I cannot have it all. Now that I know what I’m doing with my life, I’m all over the fucking place: thank you for joining me on this nonlinear journey out to wherever the fuck we’re off to.