Nine and a Half Weeks [9½ Weeks] [Nine 1/2 Weeks] *** (1986, Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger) – Classic Movie Review 12,699

9½ Weeks: The theatrical release poster is certainly classy and arty looking enough.

The sleaze to tease. Director Adrian Lyne’s 1986 shocker Nine and a Half Weeks stars Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger.

Nine and a Half Weeks is a fascinating dissection of an alluringly intense sadomasochistic relationship, apparently to be taken at face value but with suggestions of tongue-in-cheek. This soft-porn saga is a bit of a scandalous farrago, but somehow Rourke and Basinger manage to be believable and touching as the kinky, love-crazed New York City couple who enjoy an intense, brief affair. She is an art gallery employee and he is a mysterious Wall Street broker,

Based on the novel by Elizabeth McNeill [Ingeborg Day], the tale is quite shocking and challenging, a real surprise from a major American studio, made by Producers Sales Organization (PSO), Jonesfilm, Galactic Films and Triple Ajaxxx, and released by MGM/UA  (US) and PSO (internationally). Director Lyne indulges his penchant for flashy pop video-style visuals, as with his Flashdance (1983), but it seems perfectly suited to the in-your-face subject.

The couple’s affair, played out either in public or in bizarre situations, is, after all, a two-hour commercial for weird sex with a whole catalogue of bad ideas for the sexually adventurous.

It is shot by Peter Biziou and scored by Jack Nitzsche. It’s all very slick, brisk and professional, though a film like this should at least look a bit grubbier.

Now it can be seen as a precursor of  the Fifty Shades of Gray films.

Also in the cast are Margaret Whitton, David Margulies, Christine Baranski, Karen Young, Dwight Weist, Roderick Cook, William DeAcutis, Victor Truro, Justine Johnson, and Kim Chan.

Sarah Kernochan, Zalman King and Patricia Louisianna Knop adapt the screenplay from the 1978 memoir of the same name by Austrian-American author Ingeborg Day, writing as Elizabeth McNeill.

Filmed in 1984 on a $17 million budget, it was released in February 1986. American distributor MGM/UA found it a hot potato and edited heavily for its US release, no doubt resulting in its flop box office of $6.7 million. However, elsewhere unedited, the film was a big hit, notably in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, taking $100 million worldwide. It picked up a cult following on video and DVD, and also its soundtrack was a hit.

The films of Adrian Lyne: Foxes (1980), Flashdance (1983), 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), Lolita (1997), Unfaithful (2002), Deep Water (2022).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,699

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