9 1/2 Weeks

Summary

“What was the simple thing I asked you to do?”’ 

In 1986, 9 1/2 Weeks was a box office failure that went on to experience runaway success from rentals on VHS. It became a mainstay on the new network Cinemax. The career of director Adrian Lyne was seemingly unimpaired by the box office issues, because he went on to direct Fatal Attraction and Jacob’s Ladder. While this film was a VHS staple at movie rental stores when I was growing up, I had never checked it out. Being a fan of both Jacob’s Ladder and Fatal Attraction I decided to see if 9 1/2 Weeks appealed to me as well. Warner has recently reprinted their 2012 Blu-ray of the film, which had become pretty expensive to purchase online after it went out of print.

Lovely Soho art dealer Elizabeth McGraw (Kim Basinger) meets a mysterious customer named John Gray (Mickey Rourke.) She soon finds herself in a relationship where he constantly pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable to Elizabeth. The film charts their love affair which, as you probably guessed, takes place over 9 1/2 weeks.

9 1/2 Weeks is a picture that I found myself having difficulty connecting with. There are numerous elements at play here that should work. The cinematography by Peter Biziou is exceptional with very well staged and stylishly lit sequences. The two leads are both well cast and attractive. Mickey Rourke was at his most handsome, and Kim Basinger was very beautiful. I don’t think that the film is poorly directed by Adrian Lyne. I like the moments where the score for the picture by Jack Nitzsche takes center stage. So what is the issue that kept the film from working for me?

For long stretches the film felt insufferable to me. The character of John, while mysterious, seems to be a terrible jerk. So many red flags were going off in my mind saying “get away from this creep” for extended durations of the film. While moments of it are somewhat kinky, most of what John does is just strange or uncomfortable. This made it extremely difficult for me to continue to watch the picture. On top of that, the two lovers have spontaneous moments that disrupt any type of understandable narrative flow. There is a sequence where they are chased by two hooligans, they overcome them, and then hook up on the stairs of a grimy street stairwell while rainwater falls on them from a pipe above. While this sex scene was probably one of the reasons that the VHS was so popular, it’s also just nonsense. Basically, I did not think that the script by Zalman King, Sarah Kernochan, and Patricia Louisiana Knop, adapted from a book by Elizabeth McNeill, was quite up to snuff. The pacing for the picture is lopsided with moments of boredom followed by spontaneous excitement and then some inexplicable scene will take place, like Elizabeth wearing a mustache to dinner with John. By halfway through the picture, 9 1/2 Weeks starts to feel like a chore to get to the end. I have a lot of patience for films and am not opposed to lengthy films, but the 116 minutes of this film felt very long.

As an exercise in style over substance, I can’t fault Adrian Lyne or cinematographer Peter Biziou or the cast at all. I just don’t think the movie fully comes together as one might hope

Video

Presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio in 1080p with an MPEG-4 AVC encode, 9 1/2 Weeks shows its age given that this disc is a reprint of the disc from 2012, but for the most part the imagery looked pretty good to me. 9 1/2 Weeks is very well served by the cinematography of Peter Biziou, and the imagery almost redeems the picture. Unless a 4K UHD from a new transfer surfaces, I think fans will be more than happy with this video transfer.

Audio

This DTS-HD MA 5.1 track sounds dated and is plagued by soft-loud moments. The characters spend long stretches basically whispering to one another, and then music cues will strike up that are significantly louder. While the dialogue is easy enough to discern despite being on the thin side, the music comes through pretty well. This track could definitely be remastered to play much better.

Supplements:

Theatrical Trailer

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 3/5

Supplements – .5/5

Overall – 3/5

While 9 1/2 Weeks has some erotic moments that made it a staple on late night cable and in video rental stores, the picture is largely an exercise in style over substance. It is hard to connect to characters that relate to each other in such unhealthy and unattractive ways. The character John is written as a jerk and his actions make the film feel like a chore to watch. The movie has a lot going for it. It is well cast, well lit, well shot, well directed, and well scored. The problem is that the script doesn’t work. The pacing has issues. You will likely not care what happens to the characters onscreen and will simply be ready for the film to end by the time the credits roll. For fans of the film, Warner’s 2012 Blu-ray looks pretty damn good. The dialogue is on the thin side but music comes through pretty well. The soft-loud dynamic was a bit off-putting for me. Fans of the film will probably be perfectly happy with this Blu-ray release.

The film can be purchased at www.moviezyng.com.