9½ Weeks (1986)

	Directed by: Adrian Lyne	COUNTRY USA GENRE Erotic drama NORWEGIAN TITLE 9½ Weeks RUNNING TIME 118 minutes
	Produced by: Mark Damon Sidney Kimmel Zalman King Antony Rufus-Isaacs
	Written by: Sarah Kernochan Zalman King Patricia Louisianna Knop

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Elizabeth McGraw	Kim Basinger
John Gray	Mickey Rourke
Molly	Margaret Whitton	-
Harvey	David Marguiles	½
Thea	Christine Baranski	-
Sue	Karen Young	-
Ted	William DeAcutis	-
Farnsworth	Dwight Weist	-
Sinclair	Roderick Cook	-
Flower Delivery Boy	Raynor Scheine

Review

Adrian Lyne's first foray into the erotic subgenre turned out to be his second in a string of three enormous box-office successes (after Flashdance and before Fatal Attraction). It features a perfectly cast and sensational-looking Mickey Rourke as a homme fatale, and a conflicted Kim Basinger as his (sometimes) willing object of attraction, who is being led down a spiral of role play and sadomasochistic sex as their relationship intensifies. The film attracted audiences and divided critics, both arguably due to its many fairly explicit sex scenes, shot by Lyne in a music video style with more focus on composition and paradox than on eroticism. These range from steamingly hot to terribly awkward, such as that horrendous food scene. Still, Lyne's greatest achievement here isn't with the erotic material per se, but the ambience he wraps it in. Rourke's character is a conflicting enigma of some allure. And the film does challenge stereotypes left and right in the midst of all the tackiness, making it, in many ways, ahead of its time.