Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986)
Directed by Adrian Lyne
An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.
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What critics compared Nine 1/2 Weeks to
Despite citing Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris as a tonal touchstone, and nodding cheekily to American Gigolo/Psycho, the result smacks more of Adrian Lyne’s blandly naff 9½ Weeks, the S&M frankness of Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse usurped by the archaic softcore of Just Jaeckin’s The Story of O.
Although the book’s soft-X explicitness has been toned down to a hard R, this is the first studio film in many years to gaze directly at the Medusa of sex — and unlike such male-leer predecessors as 9½ Weeks, it does so from a woman’s perspective.
Now the film adaptation, likely the first of four films to be milked from James’ three books, is poised to lure people to movie theaters, just as previous exploitation gone mainstream films “9½ Weeks” and “Basic Instinct” did in decades past.
Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-“9½ Weeks” is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation — edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age.
“9½ Weeks” was more inflammatory, and “Blue Velvet” was more dangerous and disturbing.
This actress starred in 9½ Weeks, one of the most sultry movies ever.
Here the actress is an ambassador (maybe intentionally, likely not) from an earlier era of quasi-transgressive multiplex erotica, like Adrian Lyne’s 9½ Weeks (1986), which she starred in opposite Mickey Rourke.
More relishably transgressive but neither as self-consciously “outré”, nor as judgmental, as Fifty Shades of Grey (and 1986’s 9½ Weeks before it), The Duke of Burgundy is nevertheless also concerned with the affect that one partner’s overindulged sexual predilections can have on the sustainability of a romantic relationship.
Unlike legendary erotic thrillers like Adrian Lyne’s 9½ Weeks and the Oscar nominated Fatal Attraction, there wasn’t a gore or creep-factor in the characters of Shame that made them memorable.
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The lack of graphic intimacy between Vic and Melinda feels like a surprising artistic direction from Lyne after Unfaithful , 9½ Weeks , and Fatal Attraction , and combined with the lacklustre screenplay, it prevents audiences from believing them as a couple.
In the 1990s and early 2000s the English director Adrian Lyne was one of the masters of the erotic thriller, the craftsman behind such suspenseful yet deeply silly entertainments as 9½ Weeks , Fatal Attraction , Indecent Proposal , and Unfaithful .
Director Adrian Lyne has a reputation as the master of sexy mind games with such films as “Fatal Attraction,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Unfaithful” and “9½ Weeks.”
Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since director Adrian Lyne, the hand behind such provocative, erotic thrillers as “Fatal Attraction” (1987), “9½ Weeks” (1986) and “Indecent Proposal” (1993), has helmed a film.
It's made by one of the form's masters, Adrian Lyne, but the touch he had with "9½ Weeks," "Fatal Attraction" and "Indecent Proposal" is long gone, and "Deep Water" winds up drowning in its own silliness.
Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name — about a husband and wife, the lovers she takes, and the fallout of a lie about murdering her last paramour — it is exactly the type of story that the filmmaker behind 9½ Weeks , Indecent Proposal and Lolita would be suited to.
As is his wont, Lyne tells his appassionato in smooth cuts, loaded dissolves, and noir cinematography courtesy his 9½ Weeks DP Peter Biziou.
Fortunately, there's very little of the Adrian Lyne that gave us Glenn Close as a psycho slasher in "Fatal Attraction" and Kim Basinger smeared with honey in "9½ Weeks."