9 1/2 Weeks
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Actor: Christine Baranski, David Margulies, Kim Basinger, Margaret Whitton, Mickey RourkeBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-06-11
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of 9 1/2 Weeks
DVD Review: A most true, and most misunderstood masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
SPOILERS. There are many ways to "see" "9 1/2 Weeks", from watching only the sex scenes to looking for "degrading to women" parts. The movie is a lot more than that. It shows Mickey Rourke as "John" in the only way available to him to feel and express love and desire. His lack of the full emotional range results in his needing highly controlled situations to get excited. He loves Elizabeth's beauty, but can't see-can't love HER, even though she is very lovable. He treats her like a pretty object. He's so disconnected from his own feelings, he talks very little, always in a controlled way. He has no interest in what Elizabeth feels-only in how she reacts to the situations he sets up.
He observes her reactions closely with pleasure and amusement, like studying an insect under a microscope; he is a spectator rather than a participant. He cannot feel, and makes her feel instead, to see what it's like ("I saw myself in you" and "What does it feel like to be out of control!", he told her).
Elizabeth liked him very much from the first moment she saw him. She thought this was a relationship like most others so she invites him to meet her friends. When he refuses, she submits-she likes him so much that she starts going along with HIS shaping of their relationship.
The little "normal" voice inside her speaks again, when she asks, "Aren't you interested whether I like the dress?", after he buys her clothes of his own choice. His answer is telling: "No, I'm not", spoken with a tender, beguiling, confusing smile, and soft, caressing voice, which-to her- belie the truth of his words. She just can't put together in her mind his tenderness, soft voice, polite manners, good looks, expensive gifts, breakfast in bed, "I want to take care of you", "I love you Elizabeth" with his actual indifference to her feelings,and his progressively humiliating and hurtful demands.
He even whispered "I love you" in her ear the moment before he went to open the door to the prostitute he had arranged to visit them-you'll hear it if the volume is up.
She continues going along with his demands, trying to please him, until the moment comes when she realizes he will not give her any of the loving interest that his tender smile and soft voice promised her at the beginning. She obviously has fallen in love with him, and as she walks away for the last time from his place, she turns her head back hopefully, crying, in case he has ran after her-still hoping for a real sign of love from him, in spite of her best sense that this guy is incapable of love as we know it. Just like most women would. Meanwhile, he stands frozen, close to tears, willing her to come back "...until I count to 50...", but unable to just open that door and catch her.
There were two things that the director used to tell us clearly that John was a control freak; shots of his closet with the evenly spaced hangers as if with a ruler and lots of identical shirts, pants, and coats and nothing else, and his desk drawer, with everything in its place, and a place for everything, chillingly neat. He was a man with a total need to control his environment (usually resulting from high anxiety).
Also, how he avoided personal involvement is shown in their first conversation at the Italian restaurant: Here he was sitting with a lovely, sexy woman who obviously likes him, and his conversation was not flirtacious, not about him, not about her, but the history of murders in the restaurant. Maybe only someone who has met a man with these outward signs and symptoms can connect them to the huge emotional lack of his feelings.
And the much talked-about sexual scenes are vital to the story because that was ALL their interaction, there was no usual closeness and talks about each other's life, family, etc.The director makes that clear, showing us Elizabeth's attempt at sharing a funny tidbit about her dead uncle: John ends that attempt with his comment about his own Stock Exchange screens.
A very accurate psychological portrait of a highly attractive man unable to love, with a twisted attitude towards relationships, and a woman who is soft and hopeful for 9 1/2 weeks, before she leaves him when the pain becomes too much.
It is so interesting to see that at no time does he question his behavior towards her-at no time does he apologize. He behaves as if it is the most natural thing to ask of her what he asks.
Only those who have known people like that will realize how correct the portrayal in the movie is-and I have.
Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger were superb in these highly nuanced roles, with award-meriting performances. "9 1/2 weeks" is a psychological drama of great depth and accuracy, told beautifuly on the screen.
02/05/06:
I read the book by Elizatheth McNeill,ISBN: 0060746394. I tried to find info. about her on the web, publishing house, etc. Nothing. There is another Elizabeth McNeill at Severn House Publishers, author of : The Lady Of Cawnpore. Press Relations. Hot News. Unforgettable. The Last Cocktail Party. A Bombay Affair. The Golden Days.
So it is not the same Elizabeth McNeill who wrote "9 1/2 Weeks, the memoir of a love affair". That McNeill has vanished.
All I can say is that they should have made two movies: the one they made, and another one, with the same actors, true to the book, to be released later. The book is short, written in an amazingly personal, simple,raw way, which-having seen the film-brought it to life. It does not have one extraneous word in it. I can understand why they could not make the movie as the book really was. The book was truly sadistic-she was tied to the leg of the table for example. The film, even though much milder than the book, succeeded very well in portraying John as the author lived him. The book does round out the experience, and the ending is very different than the film's. The book really cemented my opinion that this story did happen.
Description of 9 1/2 Weeks
A man. A Woman. And an attraction that became an obsession. Mickey Rourke (Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man) and Kim Basinger (Batman) take you on an erotic odyssey in this steamy story of a love affair that breaks every sexual taboo. Director Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) creates "the most sexualized relationship seen in years" (Vanity Fair) in a lushly photographed rendition of secret fantasies and desires that come vividly to life on screen. Set against the high-tech backdrop of Manhattan, 9 1/2 Weeks is the length of the affair between Elizabeth, a beautiful art dealer, and John, the man who becomes her lover and changes irrevocably the course of her life. After a tantalizing initial encounter, John charts the course of their sensual journey together in a deadly serious game of sexual dominance, unlocking the door to hidden dreams, pain and ecstasy. With a scrip co-written by The Red Shoe Diaries' Zalman King, his wife Patricia Knop and Sarah Kernochan and with a puling soundtrack featuring Grace Jones, Eurhythmics, Joe Cocker and Bryan Ferry, 9 1/2 Weeks is a passionate and provocative look at love and obsession that is moving, thrilling and sometimes shocking.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 Flashdance (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. --Keith Simanton
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