In the Shallow

All play and no work kills the mood of the erotic thriller.

- ALISON WILLMORE

ADRIAN LYNE is a moralizer at heart. This may seem like a counterproductive quality for a filmmaker best known for his contributions to the erotic-thriller boom of the ’80s and ’90s, but for Lyne, the shame is inextricable from the sizzle. In 1987’s Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas nails Glenn Close against a kitchen counter—being, as she puts it, “a naughty boy”—while his wife and child are out of town, and then he gets punished when Close’s character turns out to be an obsessive stalker; in 1993’s Indecent Proposal, Demi Moore sleeps with a wealthy Robert Redford in exchange for money that she and Woody Harrelson desperately need, a mutually agreed-on dalliance that nevertheless almost breaks apart the couple’s previously passionate marriage; and in 2002’s Unfaithful—once thought to be Lyne’s last film—Diane Lane enlivens her suburban existence by having an affair with a dreamy Olivier Martinez, only for her doting husband, played by Richard Gere, to find out and kill the guy in a burst of rage. The sanctity of the home in Lyne’s work is constantly assailed by the allure of sordid, frantic, awesome-looking extramarital sex.