Fatal Affair is a thriller currently streaming on Netflix. It stars Nia Long as an attorney who is stalked by a man from her past.
Fatal Affair doesn’t add anything new to the ‘woman in peril’ because a ‘man thinks he can have her just because he wants her’ stories we have seen so many times before.
The important difference in this film is an all Black cast gets to have a go at the tale. It might be worth it to you to watch it simply for that reason.
Ellie (Nia Long) and her husband Marcus (Stephen Bishop) have moved out of the city to a beautiful home on the California coast. Their daughter Brittany (Aubrey Cleland) is away at her first year in college.
Ellie arrives at work one day to find the new IT guy is David (Omar Epps), a man she knew 20 years ago in college. He very persistently gets her out for a drink. When they drink too much, she briefly succumbs to his kissing. She pushes him away and tells him no.
She refuses his calls and texts and tells him to leave her alone. Then he shows up at her house as the date of her best friend Courtney (Maya Stojan). Even after this obvious ploy to get near her, Ellie doesn’t tell Marcus what’s happening.
It takes real danger and the involvement of the police before Ellie tells Marcus what’s happening. People get hurt, even killed, as the story builds to an exciting climax.
The only way, to my mind, for stories like this to end properly is for the woman to somehow defeat the man terrorizing her. You can decide for yourself whether you think the ending was satisfactory according to that criteria.
Nia Long has been around for a while, she’s won some awards and been in some popular shows. But this is the first time I remember her carrying the lead on her own. Fatal Affair gives her a lead she deserves.
Here’s the trailer.
Have you watched this one? What did you think of it?