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9 1 2 Weeks (Unrated)
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by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 19719
Price: $9.98
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Frequently given short shrift as a blue movie (which it is) and as mindless (which it isn't), director Adrian Lyne's follow-up to <i>Flashdance</i> (insert own joke here) is a thoughtful, smutty film about a bad sexual relationship. It follows the two-month affair between Elizabeth, an art-gallery dealer, and John, a Wall Street exec. The relationship spirals downward into raunchier sex (filmed, by the way, quite nicely) but principally is about two adults doing adult things but not acting anything like real adults. Attempts at actual human connection, about the longing to be "good," are present here and make this an above-average erotic film. Rourke is just honing his scumbag, bad-boy persona; but it doesn't overwhelm. Lots and lots of Kim Basinger. <I>--Keith Simanton</I>
Viewer Reviews
The French consider Mickey Rourke America's greatest actor. In the 80s, they loved him for his "cool, his on-screen cruelty, his seediness, his sexual depravity" (New York Times Magazine, 11/30/08), and for his "rumpled, slightly dirty, sordid. . . rebel persona (Mickey Rourke Biography - Yahoo! Movies). Just don't ask Rourke if he considers the French "more enlightened" than American filmgoers.
After recently experiencing Rourke's newest film, The Wrestler at the Denver Film Festival, I revisited 9 1/2 Weeks. It is much better than I remembered it, and not as controversial as it once was. It goes without saying that Rourke's name has become synonymous with his roles as Robert 'Boogie' Sheftell in Diner, Charlie Moran in The Pope of Greenwich Village, John Gray in 9 1/2 Weeks, James Wheeler in Wild Orchid, and Marv in Sin City.
Directed by Adrian Lyne (known for Flashdance), Fatal Attraction), 9 1/2 Weeks (1986) chronicles the erotically-charged relationship between Wall Street investor John Grey (Rourke) and divorced art gallery assistant, Elizabeth McGraw (Kim Basinger). Their doomed nine-and-a-half-week relationship culminates in Elizabeth's eventual emotional breakdown after John wants to have sex with a prostitute in front of her in a seedy room at the Chelsea Hotel. Upon its initial release, the film was considered controversial for its scenes depicting various sexual and erotic acts that throw Elizabeth's world into chaos. In one scene John teases Elizabeth while she's blindfolded. In another, John feeds her various kinds of foods while her eyes are closed. In another, they have sex in an alley. In another, Basinger's character strips to Joe Cocker's song, "You Can Leave Your Hat On." While I've read that other scenes were cut because the studio deemed them too "psychologically damaging," the scenes actually contained within the film are pretty tame by today's standards. Ironically, despite their physical intimacy, John and Elizabeth part ways as perfect strangers to each other. It is this aspect of the film that makes 9 1/2 Weeks such a emotionally compelling experience. The soundtrack also includes classic 80s songs by Luba, Bryan Ferry, Dalbello, Corey Hart, Joe Cocker, Devo, the Eurythmics, Stewart Copeland, and Jean Michel Jarre. Highly recommended as a quintessential 80s film.
G. Merritt
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9 1 2 Weeks (Unrated)
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