Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.
Body Heat is a slick neo-noir erotic thriller that owes an obvious debt to Double Indemnity, which keeps its Novelty from standing out as truly distinctive despite being well-crafted within that tradition. Kathleen Turner's debut performance is a genuine revelation — a perfectly calibrated femme fatale that anchors the entire film — and William Hurt matches her well, earning a strong Acting score. The ending delivers a genuinely satisfying twist that recontextualizes the whole film, rewarding attentive viewers. The cinematography captures the oppressive Florida heat effectively but isn't formally adventurous. The plot follows genre conventions closely, making it compelling but not particularly surprising in its mechanics beyond the final revelation.