Adrian Lyne is a skilful director of desire and fear who sometimes presses harder than he needs to. We recommend Jacob’s Ladder for its attention to a frightened person, despite Lyne’s urge to explain too much.
Fi1m perspective
In the subway in Jacob’s Ladder (1990), the place stays recognisable even as it becomes threatening. Jeffrey L. Kimball’s cinematography makes the setting hostile, while Brian Morris’s production design keeps it credible as an everyday place. We felt trapped because there was still enough of the ordinary subway in those images to prevent us dismissing its horrors. Lyne lets that uncertainty persist.
His experience in advertising helps explain his taste for soft focus, natural light and images that make surfaces feel tangible. After his feature debut, Foxes (1980), Flashdance (1983) brought the breakthrough, followed by a run of erotic dramas and thrillers. In Fatal Attraction (1987), his confidence with intimate scenes serves a darker interest in desire and its consequences. That assurance can become a weakness when the attractive images are doing more work than the characters. Indecent Proposal (1993) makes the complaint about his glossy surfaces coming before credible feeling difficult to dismiss.
Jacob’s Ladder turns that confidence towards psychological horror, with a person worth worrying about at its centre. Tim Robbins makes Jacob’s distress convincing even when Lyne overdoes the effects. Bruce Joel Rubin’s screenplay is concerned with death and the need for answers, but the director sometimes seems unwilling to let fear be enough. The tangled explanations make the story harder to follow without making the feeling any stronger. The film remains affecting because Robbins keeps the suffering credible when the images grow stranger.
Unfaithful (2002) gave his recurring interest in infidelity a more mature treatment, with strong performances to support it. After a twenty-year gap, Deep Water (2022) returned him to the erotic thriller. For an introduction to Lyne, though, we would start with the horror. Give Jacob’s Ladder some patience when the explanations become tangled; Robbins is worth staying with.
Biography
Adrian Lyne is an English film director born on 4 March 1941 in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. He began his career directing television commercials before making his feature film debut with Foxes (1980).
Lyne is known for directing Flashdance (1983), 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Jacob's Ladder (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), Lolita (1997) and Unfaithful (2002). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for Fatal Attraction. He was one of the British directors known as the 'Adland Five', who moved from advertising to feature films.
