Plot
Joe is a newly divorced, single dad in his forties living in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though he makes a decent living working as a casino pit boss, and loves the time he is getting to spend with his son, he still longs to start a new relationship. So Joe decides to explore the world of online dating, and while in a chatroom meets a woman in her twenties who calls herself sexykitten.
After a few months of exchanging messages, they meet in person. When she arrives at the airport, Joe learns that her real name is Tanya Sullivan and Joe is instantly attracted to her. She also reveals that she is married and has a young daughter. However, both Joe and Tanya don't care.
Through several months the relationship grows from hot, passionate sex, into what Joe believes is love. During those months, they continue meeting and Tanya sends Joe pornographic videos of herself. The relationship seems to be going great, until one day Tanya drops a bombshell. She's pregnant with what she believes is Joe's baby. After she tells Joe of her pregnancy, Joe tries to convince Tanya to leave her husband to come and live with him. But Tanya refuses the offer, saying her husband is very dangerous and would never let that happen.
Throughout the rest of the movie, Joe tries to convince himself that what Tanya is saying is true by asking to take pictures of the abuse that her husband allegedly causes. When Tanya pulls through with the evidence so to speak, it's not long before another bombshell is dropped. Tanya's husband finds out about the affair and takes it out on Tanya by raping her and in the process getting rid of her baby, or so Joe thinks.
At this point Joe can't take it anymore. So with the blessing of Tanya, he plots and then sets out to kill Tanya's husband, in which he succeeds in shooting him to death. During the weeks following the murder, the relationship between Joe and Tanya slowly starts to disintegrate. It's not long before Joe loses contact with Tanya all together.
So Joe decides to investigate. He travels to the town where Tanya lives. There he figures out that everything that Tanya has been telling him is a lie. Tanya was never pregnant. Her husband never abused her. She has a new house from her husband's life insurance policy. And worst of all, Tanya has a new boyfriend. Joe is devastated at learning this. He returns to Atlantic City where he falls into a deep depression. He starts to drink again, which results in Joe's son leaving to go live with his mom. Joe then finally decides to take action, or rather his own life.
Joe commits suicide and in his suicide note instructs his friend to make sure a suitcase under his bed gets to the police in Tanya's hometown. Armed with the evidence Joe has left for them, the police arrest Tanya, and she ends up convicted of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder.
Read more about this topic: Fatal Desire
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)