Throughout the film, Heigl channels Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” and Alex Forrest in “Fatal Attraction,” two movies that have clearly influenced “Unforgettable.”
She’s the descendant of Alex “Fatal Attraction” Forrest, Nurse Ratched, Annie Wilkes and Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” — trapped in a script that even the Lifetime channel might reject for being too over the top.
Heigl does her damndest to try and cement a new erotic thriller icon, hovering somewhere between Rebecca De Mornay’s lethal caretaker in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Glenn Close’s jilted one night stand from Fatal Attraction.
A gorgeous ex-wife who regards Dawson with the same fond affection Glenn Close had for that bunny in "Fatal Attraction."
The film doesn't quite know whether it wants to be a low-grade B-movie like that or a trashy Skinemax flick with Hollywood B-listers in the leads or an actual serious effort a la "Fatal Attraction" (director Denise Di Novi is SO not the visual stylist as Adrian Lyne, who directed "Fatal Attraction" along with such high-grade smut as "Indecent Proposal," and "Unfaithful").
As a cinematic subgenre, the woman-stalker thriller is hardly among the most elevated, though it has had its moments of cultural relevance, from Play Misty for Me (1971) to Fatal Attraction (1987) to Single White Female (1992).