Basic Instinct: Blink and You’ll Miss It
Basic Instinct shows the audience that women have all the power.
When we officially meet Catherine Tramell, she is relaxed poised and completely in control when two male police detectives arrive at her house. Despite them being there to question her over the murder of a man she was sleeping with, Catherine refuses to play the role of damsel in distress.
NICK
I’m De…CATHERINE
(evenly)
I know who you are.She doesn’t look at them. She looks at the water.
Her unwillingness to be typecast causes the authority figures Detective Gus Moran, and her main opponent, Detective Nick Curran, to take a step back and reassess the situation. Confusion and arousal fill them both and therefore keeps Catherine two steps ahead. She has picked the game and analysed its players whilst the men still don’t know the type of woman they’re facing.
When the Detectives manage to put some distance between themselves and their lead suspect, her spell wears off. They are no longer enthralled but left pissed off that their intimidation tactics failed and she outsmarted them. The only move they see next is reasserting themselves as the ones running the show.
CORRIGAN
Come on, you know there’s no case
here. There’s no physical evidence —
okay, she…
