Killing Me Softly is a 2002 erotic thriller film directed by Chen Kaige and starring Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes.

Based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Nicci French, it introduces several substantial changes to the story and focuses heavily on the intense sexual relationship between the two lead characters.

Alice is a young American woman living in London who believes she is happy in a secure job and a relationship with her boyfriend.

The following day she seeks the stranger out again, discovering his name is Adam - a mountain climber who is considered a hero after saving six people in a tragic event that killed several others, including the woman he loved.

Disturbed by the fact that she barely knows her new husband, she begins to go through their apartment, becoming even more alarmed when she searches a locked wardrobe and finds a box of old letters from an ex-lover, Adele, who insists she and Adam end their affair.

Deborah revealed that she had sex with Adam when he was 15 years old, resulting in her subsequent obsession with her own brother and need to rid his life of any other woman.

The film ends with Alice's voiceover recalling the events in posterity and wondering what might have happened had fate not led her to Adam one morning.

The site's consensus is: "Respected director Chen Kaige's first English-language film is a spectacularly misguided erotic thriller, with ludicrous plot twists and cringe-worthy dialogue".

[11] David Rooney of Variety called it: "A turgid erotic thriller that plays like Zalman King-meets-vintage Brian De Palma without the latter's wit or style".