Adrian Lyne

Indecent Proposal (1993)

Indecent Proposal (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, October 2019) I thought I would enjoy Indecent Proposal. The subject matter is off-putting by design, but who could imagine that a film with Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore and Robert Redford could go wrong? To its credit, the film tells you almost from its first thirty seconds that it’s not going to be fun, as a couple reflects on what they had together. One flashback later and we’re quickly off to the celebrated premise of the film as our young couple struggles with money problems and Redford steps in as a billionaire playboy so smitten with her that he offers them a million dollars for a night with her. (In the mid-nineties, this became a popular party question.)  But for such a saucy premise, Indecent Proposal soon sinks in preposterousness and boredom. Directed without much energy nor precision by Adrian Lyne (from a script that reportedly toned down much of the novel’s ambiguity), it’s a film that quickly becomes a feat of endurance as we move from one obvious set-piece to another, the resolution never in doubt even despite the misleading prologue. The longer it goes on after delivering on its premise, Indecent Proposal multiplies the double standards, attempts to make heroes out of obnoxious characters and showcases retrograde ideas about, well, just about everything linked to sex and women. Harrelson is miscast as an intellectual, Moore’s beauty isn’t equalled by an equivalent acting talent, and Redford himself can’t use his charisma to hide the smarminess of his character. It’s all a bit sad, and most fatally, interminable. It took me only a few minutes to lower my expectations, and they stayed there for the rest of the film.

Flashdance (1983)

Flashdance (1983)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2017) Sometimes, watching popular hits from decades past is enough to make you wonder what they were thinking back then. Some movies don’t age well, and for all of the box-office dollars that Flashdance accumulated in 1983, a lot of it just feels silly today. The premise itself seems like a jumble of words, as a welder-by-day and burlesque-dancer-by-night dreams of becoming a professional dancer. The only thing standing in the way of her dreams in a pre-YouTube era is an admission to a dance school. Much of the film is spent on the way from dream to reality, frequently interrupted by music videos. That last part isn’t much of an exaggeration: Director Adrian Lyne clearly aped then-new format of music videos in blatantly stopping the film for musical set pieces, hand-waving them as performance art in a burlesque club. It works up to a point, until we get exasperated that the simplistic story isn’t going anywhere. This focus on music videos is obvious from the wall-to-wall hit soundtracks—alas, it’s all early-eighties pop, which sounds terrible today. At least Jennifer Beals is very likable at the lead—she’s quite a bit better than the movie surrounding her. Flashdance is also notable for bringing together filmmakers who would then go on to have big careers, particularly producers Bruckheimer/Simpson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. If you’re not watching from a historical perspective, the film is a dud—the story is linear, the interludes too frequent and the romance is bolted together out of narrative convenience. There are far better movies from 1983, and they have all aged much better than this one.

Unfaithful (2002)

Unfaithful (2002)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, December 2016) I probably shouldn’t have watched Fatal Attraction a few days before Unfaithful, because the comparison isn’t kind to this film (even despite them sharing the same director). In some ways, this gender-flipped story of adultery does uphold some old-fashioned morals of deception and revenge. Alas, it does so at length, never settling for a quick cut when a long sustained shot will do. Diane Lane is rather good as the married woman deciding to indulge in a bit of adultery, and the casting of the two male actors is amusing: Choosing a side of Olivier Martinez over a main course of Richard Gere is the kind of thing that underscores the wish fulfillment of Hollywood movies. There is, as is usual for erotic thrillers, a bit of heat in the initial couplings … although this quickly cools down once the erotic part is done and the thriller part begins. By the time the husband character semi-accidentally kills the adulterer, the plot has simultaneously started and ended at once: the rest of the movie is guilty thumb-twiddling until the end. It doesn’t make for a satisfying film—there’s little to offset the unintentional hilarity of some sequences. It’s also far too long for its thin plot, but so it goes. There may be a clash between Unfaithful’s aspirations as an infidelity drama, and the way it veers into a murder thriller in its third act—the finale kills the questions left by its first act, which itself is far too slow for a thriller. No matter what or why, Unfaithful doesn’t make much of a case for itself—it’s not that bad a choice if you really, really like either or all of the three leads, but it doesn’t quite cohere into something satisfying.