... the original being "Dial M for Murder" from 1954. Lots has changed in the ensuing 44 years, and those changes to society are reflected in the remade film. Here the wife is cheating, not with a guy who is an upright citizen if you overlook he is bedding a friend's wife, but with an artist who has a criminal past of conning rich ladies. Gwyneth Paltrow is the young wife, Emily, with inherited wealth, Michael Douglas plays Steven, the older husband whose financial interests are crumbling and figures out his wife is cheating and with who. He threatens the artist with exposure - to his wife and the police - if he does not agree to kill his wife for money so that Steven can inherit her money and save his business.
So everybody is guilty to a degree. There are not "good" characters and "bad" characters as in Dial M. Society has become too cynical for that to work. Keys still play a big part in the plot as do phone calls, but instead of the brilliant inspector Hubbard figuring everything out, here it is the wife that unravels the plan. The detective in this modern film is largely useless. In the original film the wife is a damsel in distress, unable to determine what exactly has happened and the forces that are arrayed against her. But Paltrow as Emily is an empowered would have been victim.
