9 ½ Weeks (1986)

February 21, 2009

Netflix Live Stream, Seattle, WA

*** / ****

By Scott Muoio

9 ½ Weeks is a mood piece. A kinky, depraved, creepy mood piece, but a mood piece nonetheless.

The film stars Mickey Rourke as a wealthy young businessman used to getting what he wants, when he wants it. Kim Basinger plays the latest object of his affection, a young divorcee whose kinky side is about to come out in full force.

The two meet, engage in 9 ½ weeks of sexual delinquency, and break things off in a flurried huff. Apparently, a relationship cannot flourish on shared physical dereliction alone.

Not nearly as steamy as the billing but definitely more kinky, 9 ½ Weeks is the kind of movie few will enjoy. It’s more character study than narrative story, and cut from the cloth of a dirty poem or erotic painting rather than a screenplay or novel, it succeeds and fails for those exact reasons.

Most will be shocked and then bored at the series of miscreant acts Rourke and Basinger perform with one another, which is basically the entire film. In that sense, 9 ½ Weeks is sort of like the experience of watching regular pornography: there are only so many acts a couple can perform before it’s merely repetition. But then again, the movie is fresh, honest and nothing like pornography in the way Rourke and Basinger play off one another as casual acquaintances, reluctant lovers, and inevitably troubled souls.

Between the awkwardly enlivening strip tease, furiously freeing food obsession, and demeaning acts of punishment the movie reveals so little and yet so much about its lovers it borders on genius. Can a couple’s love making reveal that much about them? Buy into the 9 ½ Weeks theory and you just might start thinking it is possible.

9 ½ Weeks certainly isn’t for everyone, and really, I don’t know who it might actually be for. But something about it is quite beautiful and true, even if it is creepy as hell. In that sense I recommend it, but only to those expecting the unexpected and not afraid of plenty of hate and freakiness in their sexual intercourse.

Director: Adrian Lyne

Producer: Mark Damon, Sidney Kimmel, Zalman King

Writer: Sarah Kernochan, Zalman King

Starring: Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke

Original Music: Jack Nitzsche

Cinematographer: Peter Biziou

Editor: Caroline Biggerstaff, Ed Hansen