9 ½ Weeks

Mickey Rourke is a stockbroker, Kim Basinger, works at an art gallery, and the two kindle a sexual relationship that might (or might not) eventually produce feelings other than pleasure and kink.
**** ½

Yeah, I’ve often noticed 9 ½ Weeks is reputed as glossy trash that attempts to be erotic, but I am the first to admit that I love it. I love the way the leads kind of “dance” with each other, and there’s this sizing up going on when the results are never in doubt. I kind of grin as smoothly confident Mickey Rourke (people might laugh at me, but I did think he was the 80s James Dean) approaches “disrobing” Basinger’s inhibitions gradually. He knows that he appeals to women, has the looks and charisma to do so, a little charm here, a smile there, with shades of caution and patience as he leads the dance with Basinger having to step into his beats if they are to find their way to the crescendo. It is all in this one scene I smile all the way through as a seemingly nervous (Why am I here? Should I be here? What will be the results of this “throwing caution to the wind”?) Basinger goes to a location out of her comfort zone in the Big City, as Rourke looks at the situation and lays out how they are not near people they know, in a place that she is not familiar, and I think you can sense that he’s, at the moment, in the driver’s seat, but without her okay, this will not complete the desired cycle. So both have a part in the seduction. There has to be a seduced and a seducer. Rourke has the confidence (because this is a routine he has mastered with other women) to be the seducer and Basinger will need to willingly give her passion to him in order to be the seduced. It is a delicate balance, but a balancing act Rourke is often successful. Adrian Lyne directed these movies of sexual politics where men and women have passionate encounters and attempts (maybe both, or just one of the participants) to deconstruct them, if they will lead anywhere or nowhere. Also, what is most important? The passion can be fleeting and the results can leave both people in a state of dissatisfaction or confusion. In the case of Fatal Attraction, the results are downright scary. Or Unfaithful where intimate encounters can lead to murder. Or Indecent Proposal where a wealthy opportunity comes if a man can allow his woman to sleep with another for a “cash reward”.

He starts to see how far she’ll go for him by asking her to remove her dress. It is a test. Will she become uninhibited and can he encourage her to go further and further in the direction he so chooses. When she does, he asks if he can blindfold her. Another test. Her reluctance but willingness…that is a turn on for quite a few (including me). He is seeing if she will be obedient to certain requests. The turn on is if he can continue to request and her accept. That acceptance is the thrill that is sought more than copulation or penetration. I have always felt the sex is just results, the journey to those results is really what makes it all exciting.

“Don’t move. I want to look at the outline of your body.”

When Rourke uses ice (he even jiggles the glass a little as Basinger, now in blindfold, sends off a smile) to arouse Basinger by steadily stringing dripping water across her sensitive flesh, I can only imagine different reactions from members of any viewing audience. Some probably found it silly, perhaps some found it to their taste, but 9 ½ Weeks earned some notoriety for such scenes.

When she meets him at his pricy apartment (he has lots of television screens, fancy music/stereo equipment that at the time was expensive and well desired), he places a little present on a table from a slight distance. She asks him why he couldn’t just bring the gift to her and he says he likes to watch her move. Yeah, a little cheesy, but I guess, at the time, it seemed appropriate in this type of film if a guy wants to tickle the fancy of a doll he’s interested in. She finds it cute in the way her little laugh indicates his remark hit the spot nicely.

I love this scene after Rourke gives her the watch and asks her every day at 12 noon to look at the time and think of him touching her where Basinger is on the phone and doesn’t want to go out with her morose ex, asking her friend at the gallery to go in her place. What I love about the scene is where the friend said could she borrow Basinger’s body! 

Guilty Pleasure is thrown around a lot but if one genuinely likes/loves/enjoys a movie, should it really elicit a feeling of guilt? Fuck those who don’t like a movie; doesn’t mean you have to hide behind Guilty Pleasure. Own it. Okay, got that off my chest. Yes, I realize Basinger losing herself in a bit of “self touchy feely” while perusing art photos on a projector, a bit bored and preoccupied with Rourke on her mind (and provoking animal lust that even has her sweating it off), might be considered a bit desperate to evoke how lust can take over a woman, transfixed and unable to shake him off. As she is transfixed with Rourke, thanks to Lyne’s cinematographer, Peter Biziou, I can speak for myself when I say that Basinger certainly had the look and beauty, a seductive quality that was palpable to me; Lyne had two beautiful people to lens this story of two young adults in the city allowing themselves to forget conventional relations. Add an 80s pop soundtrack and long looks between two leads, some silent communication where Rourke and Basinger share much while saying little, and the eventual acknowledgment that sex will be part of the roller coaster whirlwind romance occurring during the movie, 9 ½ Weeks has received a lot of mixed reactions (mainly negative) from audiences and critics.

I remember watching 9 ½ Weeks one night late. You know the deal. Fall asleep while the the television is on. One of the movie channels had the movie on rotation. I woke to it coming on, became compelled by it (Basinger, and her scenes with Rourke), particularly how European it felt to me. It seemed to say that sex could be fun but perhaps not ultimately fulfilling, mainly because there's that elephant in the room that won't go away, that lingering question...how many women have received the same treatment as Basinger, and been asked to disrobe or perform for him and obey his whims? She's obviously not the first.

There are moments which I think come from Rourke just finding something to do with Basinger that is thought up on the spot as couples who are experimenting and fooling around improvisationally. The whole food sequence where he has her close her eyes as he introduces fruit and food into her open mouth as such an example. He even gives her cough syrup at one point. Yeah, just for fun, he even feeds her a hot pepper! Nice. And a whole glass of milk. This goes on for a while and probably bores a few folks. I even have to admit that it didn’t do anything for me personally, but I understood that there’s a certain spontaneity as a point to get across regarding these two characters.

I was thinking about the congestion of the city as I was watching 9 ½ Weeks; all those suits, the variety of blue collar/white collar, old and young, and how our couple’s romance (fling, sexcapades, whatever you wish to call this) functions within it. One scene has Basinger visiting Rourke at his spacious office in the heart of Stocks & Bonds Central, later the two having a noon eat at some heavily populated bar, lots of Wall Streeters filling the whole place with smoke and chatter. Then the two kind of quietly draw close and intimate, catching the attention of one of the suit barflies next to them. She wants to understand what it is like to “be one of the boys” and so Rourke finds this idea fascinating (because he seems to approach the relationship as a game of sorts, he will try experimental things for kicks). He has her dress as a guy, with mustache, hat, and suit, and Basinger meets him as two businessmen might for drinks and business. Their conversation seems to be role-playing as Rourke talks about dealing with the wife and kids, the tiresome exhaustion of business, the long hours, and how he has this hot chick on the side with a nice, “heart-shaped ass.” He takes off her hat (she’s sold into the part so when he tries to make out, she’s embarrassed and afraid to inside such a swank, high-priced restaurant), kisses her, mustache still in place (until he removed it), with patrons at other tables bothered by their giggles and intimacy. Believed to be two guys in love, homophobes provoke a fight, lots of rain, a closed alley (with a fan, of course and the street light shining brightly through), and, wouldn’t you know it, Rourke and Basinger actually win when a knife is wielded by her at them.

After watching the Basinger and Rourke fuck scene in that alley, up some rough steps, as the rain pours almightily, I re-watched it with M83’s Midnight City overlapping it for surprisingly pleasing results. I remember a bit of a critique on this scene--how unrealistic it is, a forced attempt at providing flashy erotica, spur of the moment, adrenaline-fueled, and impulsively motivated by excitement out of the moment--and perhaps it is all a bit of sexual whimsy, but I thought it worked for me. Basinger, all wet and into-the-moment;  yeah, I can see how that could be a turn on for those who are aroused by Basinger. She gives plenty of reasons for us to be jonesing on her playtime with Lyne's camera. It seems as if she felt totally free and liberated in front of the camera. She rarely is so openly willing to give so much of herself in front of the camera. Just bits of her nude body ultimately stay on screen for any considerable length, but still, mainstream film rarely has an actress with Basinger's caliber (I think she's a damn fine actress in the right parts) willing to even go this far. 

The lifting of the necklace on a dare from Rouke with Basinger complying is one step further pushed into the danger zone, with the mattress “choosing” having me in ribbons. Yes, an unamused mattress saleswoman wants to know specifics on the kind of mattress Rourke wants and he just has Basinger lying down, wanting her to spread her legs! Of course, the mattress saleswoman is not too fond of such misbehavior, but it is all for kicks, so Rourke succeeds in making her uncomfortable. Then he goes to a certain shop to pick out a whip, with the uptight men behind the counter reacting astonishingly (without word, just expression) when he pops Basinger’s legs.

Later, after visiting an elderly artist she plans to have a gallery opening for (this is that point of the film where all the fun and games for Basinger begins to have an impact and her interest in continuing starts to dissipate), she meets Rourke and wants her to crawl, on her hands and knees, towards him, picking up bills dropped on the floor. All of this is a means to an end. The fun lasts for a little while but where is the real relationship at the end of it all? Sure Kim can perform a striptease, shake her groove thing, bump and grind with Rourke all smiles, lead him to the top of his apartment complex overlooking the city, but once all of this foreplay concludes, will there be anything else? I guess that is why it all ends as expected: Kim walks away, with Rourke thinking after a bit of a reveal regarding his personal back story that she will return, and it ends. 

There is an inevitability about 9 ½ Weeks. I think as the film continues and you see Rourke pushing Basinger further away with his “don’t know when to quit” (the blindfolding in Chelsea, with the “purring” prostitute, and the potential lesbian groping, along with the use of a belt to scare here were both instances that caused her to slip away from his grasp), it is inevitable that this fling will end. I do think she enjoyed the excitement of it for a while, but as he got more aggressive, and demanded more from her than she was willing to give, all hope was lost that the relationship could withstand the pursuit of something more satisfying and meaningful.

I guess it comes down to what people are looking for. Love is used by the couple during their fling, said plenty of times, but in the heat of passion, the word, its power, was lost in their need for gratification and passion, not permeating due their being caught up in the throes of chaotic lovemaking. So by the end, it isn’t enough. There’s pure emotion, though. Weeping and aching, but it happens after Basinger has made her decision to leave Rourke. One last bit of screwing after a near nervous breakdown when Basinger watched a senile artist amongst the jovial art crowd at his gallery showing; the work gets its due, and there’s plenty of fanfare surrounding it, but the ability to understand what all the fuss is about seems oblivious to him. Basinger has succeeded in bringing attention to Farnsworth’s work, but he’s unable to appreciate it (or perhaps even wants it to be acknowledged). Too much turmoil and this should be when she’s at her happiest. Perhaps just to be emotionally healthy, Basinger will have to end the relationship and move on to someone else. She does, and we won’t truly know if the next guy can fulfill what Rourke was lacking.