The Last Seduction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Last Seduction is a neo-noir 1994 film directed by John Dahl.
The movie features Linda Fiorentino as the femme fatale, Peter Berg as a small-town man whose one night affair turns into more than he wanted, and Bill Pullman as Fiorentino's husband who's chasing her and running from loan sharks at the same time. Fiorentino's performance generated talk of a possible Oscar nomination, but because the film was shown on cable television (HBO) before it was released to theaters in 1994, she was disqualified from Oscar consideration.
Plot
Bridget Gregory works as a telemarketing manager in New York City. Her husband, Clay, is training to be a doctor and is heavily in debt to a loan shark. He arranges to sell stolen pharmaceutical cocaine to two drug dealers. The transaction becomes tense when the buyers pull a gun, but to Clay's surprise, they eventually pay him $700,000. Clay is left shaken, and on his return home he slaps Bridget after she insults him. She then flees their apartment with the cash while he is in the shower.
On her way to Chicago, she stops in Beston, a small town near Buffalo. There she meets Mike Swale, a local man back from a whirlwind marriage in Buffalo that he refuses to talk about. He tries to pick Bridget up, and she proceeds to use him for mere sexual gratification during her stay in town. Adept at word games and mirror writing, and with an imminent return to her hometown in mind, Bridget changes her name to Wendy Kroy (as a reversal of 'New York') and gets a job at the insurance company where, coincidentally, Mike works. Their relationship is strained by her manipulative behavior and the fact he is falling for her.
When Mike tells her how to find out if a man is cheating on his wife by reading his credit reports, Bridget invents a plan based on selling murders to cheated wives. She suggests they start with Lance Collier, a cheating, wife-beating husband residing in Florida. This proves to be the last straw for Mike, and he leaves her alone in his place after an argument. Meanwhile, Clay's thumb is broken by the loan shark for not repaying his loan. Fearing for his health and in dire financial straits, he hires a private detective, Harlan, to retrieve the money from his wife.
Harlan traces her phone area code, travels to Beston, and accosts Bridget at gunpoint right after her argument with Mike. Bridget purposely crashes her car after tricking Harlan into removing his seat belt, resulting in his death. Because Harlan was black, she uses local racial prejudice to persuade the police to close the case without further investigation. Bridget then resumes her manipulation of Mike and pretends to travel to Florida to kill Lance Collier. Instead, she goes to Buffalo to meet Mike's ex-wife, Trish. Upon returning, Bridget shows Mike the money she stole from Clay, claiming it is her cut of the life insurance payout from the new widow.
Bridget claims to have done it so they can live together, then tries to persuade him that he must also commit a similar murder so they will be even and to prove that he loves her. She tries to talk Mike into killing a tax lawyer in New York City who is cheating old ladies out of their homes. At first he refuses, but later agrees after receiving a letter from Trish saying she is moving to Beston. The letter was forged by Bridget to change his mind.
Mike goes to New York and breaks into the apartment of the supposed attorney, who turns out to be Clay. After Mike hand cuffs Clay, Clay realizes what is happening when Mike mentions Bridget's alias, and convinces Mike of the truth by showing him a photo of himself and Bridget together. They then hatch a plot to double-cross her, unaware that the tables will be turned on them. Bridget arrives and the still-immobilized Clay, who has been clever enough to predict most of Bridget's actions but fails to understand her sociopathy, tries to make amends with her. Instead, she empties a pepper spray bottle down his throat, killing him. She tells a stunned Mike to rape her. When he refuses, she tells him she knows the truth about Trish, who is transgender, and goads him by calling him a homophobic slur. This causes Mike to have rough sex with her while acting out a rape fantasy. Unbeknownst to Mike, Bridget has dialed 9-1-1 and she coaxes him into "confessing" to Clay's murder as part of the role play. Mike is arrested for rape and murder, while she escapes with the cash, later calmly destroying the only evidence that could have been used in Mike's defense.
