| Fatal Affair | |
| Director: | Peter Sullivan |
| Cinematography: | Eitan Almagor |
| Editing: | Randy Carter |
| Music: | Matthew Janszen |
| Distributor: | Netflix |
| Runtime: | 89 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Fatal Affair is a 2020 American psychological thriller film directed by Peter Sullivan, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rasheeda Garner. It stars Nia Long, Omar Epps, Stephen Bishop, and KJ Smith.
It was released on July 16, 2020, by Netflix.
Ellie Warren is a successful attorney living with her husband Marcus who is recovering after a horrible car accident. They have just moved into a new house on the coast from the city of San Francisco now that their daughter Brittany has left for college. Ellie meets her firm's new tech consultant, David Hammond, who she has not seen since college twenty years ago. She remains unaware that David is in anger management therapy following an incident with a woman named Deborah. Ellie and David initially meet for drinks, but the situation turns sexual as they go to the bathroom of a club, although Ellie resists. Afterwards, David stalks her via phone calls, texts, viewings of her house from a distance, breaking into her home, hacking into her home security system, sending her a package, and dating Ellie's friend Courtney. This is all despite Ellie's warnings to stay away from her and her family.
Ellie learns from another one of her former college classmates that David murdered his ex-wife Deborah and her new boyfriend a few months after the divorce. Ellie sends Courtney an e-mail with information about Deborah's murder and how David likely committed it, but David deletes it. Ellie is horrified to see him golfing with Marcus. She convinces the concierge at David's building to let her into his apartment, where she finds pictures of Deborah and of herself taken from afar on his computer. As Ellie calls Courtney about the pictures, David gets to Courtney’s place and attacks her. She is found bleeding from the head by Ellie and taken to the hospital. With the police now looking for David, he tries to pull a trick on the public by making them think he committed suicide; he sets a homeless man on fire with a suicide note. The police find all the evidence in his home, including a confession for his ex-wife’s murder.
One night, Ellie gets a message from her assistant (presumably from David) to sign some documents. Ellie stops by her office and finds her assistant murdered on the floor. Ellie rushes home and calls the police, before she finds David alive and knocks him unconscious with a vase. She encounters the corpse of Brittany's boyfriend Scott, and finds Marcus and Brittany tied up. She frees them as the police arrive, but David kills a cop. As Brittany gets into her car and drives away, a fight ensues between Marcus, David, and Ellie, which ends with David falling to his death on a beach cliffside. A few months later, Marcus and Ellie send Brittany back to school, and their house is for sale.
In October 2019, Deadline reported that Netflix had partnered with Hybrid Films with Peter Sullivan directing the film project. Nia Long, Omar Epps and Stephen Bishop were attached to star in the film, with Sullivan and Rasheeda Garner writing the script. Long, Barry Barnholtz, Brian Nolan and Jeffrey Schenck would serve as producers on the film. In November 2019, it was announced KJ Smith had joined the cast of the film. Principal photography for the film took place on location in Los Angeles, California in 2019.[1]
The film was released on July 16, 2020 by Netflix.[2] [3] [4] It was the top-streamed film on the site in its debut weekend, then placed sixth the following weekend.[5] [6]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of and an average rating of, based on reviews. The website's critics consensus reads: "As basic as its title, Fatal Affair gets lost between 'so bad it's good' and 'barely there.'"[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[8]
Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave the film a "C−" and wrote: "Too chaste to be a Fatal Attraction ripoff and far too dull to approach the hammy charms of Obsessed the greatest assets of Peter Sullivan's Fatal Affair are stars Nia Long and Omar Epps. They keep this from looking and feeling like a limp Lifetime movie knockoff."[9]