I always thought it was really evident their characters in Jurassic Park were in some way romantically entwined. However there seems to be some debate on Twitter at the moment about it, eg
Not really sure what all the fuss is about with this. A 20 year age gap is a lot but for a bit of a flirty scenario at work between people 20s vs 40s or 30s vs 50s (if there isn’t a power imbalance) is absolutely fine.
Yeah the age gap thing is a bit overblown especially as Dern’s character comes across as being older than the actress was at the time.
Dead Calm on the other hand
I think also surely no one was thinking Sam Neill was 42 (46 when released but I read 42 when they started it so I’m not sure how long production was but seems like they began in 1990 - she is 19 years younger) when they watched it? I figured they were both close to 30.
Actually just checked up Dead Calm which I saw before Jurassic Park and the age difference between Kidman and Neill is the same. I know he’s meant to be older than her but I don’t recall it ever seeming like he was near 40 in that, so maybe I thought of him as more youthful as a result.
It’s more that Kidman is barely out of her teens and according to the story has already had a child with him, he does look approaching middle age in it imo
I should really watch it again but that sort of film tends not to have the same power when you know it and I find that sort of villain so hard to watch (obviously that’s the point).
Apparently this was meant to be an inspiration for the original novel