She’s a good girl, a grown woman who keeps excusing and forgiving his odd behaviour because of how he’s sweet and lovable when all is good and because of how he makes her feel passionate and desired when they have sex. She does everything he tells her/orders her to do, charmed by him and addicted to the way he makes her feel desired and trasgressive.
First time I saw it years ago I was simply curious but knew nothing about it really, only that Kim Basinger danced a striptease on the ‘you can leave your hat on’ song, as if that was what the movie was about. It isn’t. And it’s not a porn movie, at all. There is a little nudity, a couple of shots at her breasts and bum, but for once I can accept that, it was kind of pertinent to the story and was never vulgar.
Details:
Elizabeth (Basinger) meets John (Mickey Rourke) for the first time while out shopping for a party her gallery is planning. He’s very cute and stares at her in a kind but provocative way, and then later they see each other again at the market and he approaches her smiling. They eat something together, laugh, and then he gives her the 300dollars shawl she liked, that he had seen her looking at at the market but that she couldn’t afford to buy; he puts it on her shoulders embracing her in his arms.
He tells her: “don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?” and that’s the only thing I don’t understand of this movie: what warning? when? about what? Anyone can explain that?
They walk and have a good time, then he takes her to a friend’s place, where he starts making the bed in front of her. This annoys her: “you’re taking a hell of a lot for granted. Either that or you’re practicing to be a maid.” He stops, they talk a bit about his job “I buy and sell money”, and when she calls it a risky business he says “not riskier than you coming here. Out here where there’s no neighbours around, we hardly know each other” - he’s very good here, looking and sounding sexy and frightening at the same time - “I mean I don’t know you, you really don’t know me” and even “there’s no-one to hear you if you called out” and she’s suddenly like “I don’t like this anymore, I want to go home”. Of course she does, I mean, there’s the smile and the deep eyes and the soft voice but it’s true, they don’t know each other and this is getting a bit weird..
The next day he sends her flowers and when they meet again he buys her balloons, has her go alone on the wheel and tells the guy who operates it to stop it when she’s right at the top and leaves her there the time of a coffee at a bar. She’s angry of course, she hits him with the balloons and he lets her, calming her down and winning her over again, and they soon make peace because we see them walking and kissing with the balloons in her hand - and if you pause that moment, it is a Beautiful picture, like a painting, really.
When they go to her place, suddenly he says “take off your dress” - “what?” and his voice becomes sweeter “will you take off your dress?” and she does, keeping a shirt on; “may I blindfold you?” and he says that if she doesn’t want to she only has to ask him to leave, but she says “I don’t want you to leave” so he smiles because he won again, and slowly blindfolds her and then he asks if it frightens and excites her and she says yes both times. He moves an ice cube over her face, her breast, her body.. and we see no more. This is what I was on about talking about power. He got her to do what he wanted even if at first she wasn’t keen on the idea at all, basically it was ‘do as I want or you’ll never see me again’, which is not a nice thing to say. It is what you say to children: be quiet or we leave and go home right now, stop running in the street or you’ll be grounded for a week, that sort of thing, only children need to learn many things for their own good, adults should not treat each other like that.
We have a small scene of Elizabeth at work to show that she has a day life, and then she goes to his place. He says that he loves to cook and that he bought something for her and places it next to him, away from where she’s sitting, and looks at her waiting for her to get up and come and get it. Power again, having her go to him instead of handing it to her like any normal person would do.
It’s a gold watch: “Elizabeth, each day at 12 o’clock, would you look at that watch and think of me touching you? Would you do that for me?” - “yes”. Power again, to sort of control her mind when he’s not around.
She keeps thinking of him and at work she tells her friend that she’s been hypnotized because she can’t concentrate anymore, and later she touches herself thinking of him.
Next they go to the apartment she shares with her friend from work Molly: he chops red peppers without any shirt on, which is worth a mention, then he tells her to sit down and close her eyes; she does so and he feeds her different things - omg I felt so strongly this scene, I could never do that, I feel sick only thinking about it; anyway, they start with fruit and stuff, then cough syrup and green peppers, then he pours stuff all over her, and all the time she keeps her eyes closed as he wants, as if not daring to disobey or she might lose him.
She’s not upset when she hears that Molly slept with her ex Bruce - she herself told her to go out and have dinner with him in her place because she was busy.
Liz asks John to come to a party to meet her friends, but he says that he doesn’t want to meet anybody, he only wants to be with her, and he tells her that she’ll never have to do the dishes again, he says that he’ll cook, he’ll shop, he’ll dress her, feed her, undress her, bathe her.. “and I’ll take care of you” which is all very seductive but also kinda wrong because she’s not a pet or a baby.
He tells her to see her friends during the day because he wants the nights to be for the two of them. When he receives a call and has to go out, he tells her to stay and wait for him, and he stays out a long time. She looks around, and his closet looks like Monk’s closet, everything’s perfect, tidy, and then he calls her saying he’d been wondering if she had looked around at his things, closet, drawers, but also that he thought she’s not that kind of person, that she’s a good girl, and he asks her to tell him the truth, that she can trust him and it’ll be their secret, and he’s frightening again, and also making her feel bad about what she did without ever apologizing for leaving her alone for so long, demanding she wait for him instead of go home and do what she wants.
She admits “yes, I’ve been a nosy parker” - “shame on you” and he hangs up. When he gets back he says “I didn’t think you’d be here”, and he tells her that she’s been bad, and to face the wall because he has to spank her, that he’s not kidding. This is unacceptable, she gets angry and moves to leave, then tells him instead “who the fuck do you think you are?” and she tries to hit him but he grabs her, carries her on a table and penetrates her after ripping her underwear off.
She’s very shaken. Next we see her waking up on the bed, he made her breakfast already. He buys her new clothes, his style, without asking if she likes them or not and not caring. We see a few mixed images of them together, laughing or fighting; he buys her sexy underwear, takes her to a clock tower and have sex there. He cooks and feeds her soup, again saying that he’ll take care of her, and now she asks “how did you know I’d respond to you the way I have?” and he says “I saw myself in you” which is not clear to me what he means exactly, but I know that dangerous people know how to treat people to get them to do what they want, just like conmen learn how to get people to trust them.
Liz tells Molly “I can’t figure this guy out” which is part of the reason she’s so taken, and she agrees that it Might be true love...
Elizabeth follows John at work and brings him lunch, admires his office, but he says nothing after the first “what are you doing here?” so she gives up and leaves, but he phones his secretary “don’t let her leave” and she hurries! Everybody must obey him...
Liz tells him that sometimes she wonders how it’d be like to be one of the boys so he leaves her a note next to some boxes: “open them, get dressed, meet me in the lobby at eight. John”. It’s a man’s suit, with a bowtie a hat and fake moustache. They go to dinner and he talk to her as if she was a man, talking about how life is hard and saying “only thing that keeps me going is this chick. I got this chick” using words like unbelievable and ‘so hot’ and “I can hardly believe it” and then he kisses her.
On the street, people on a car call them faggots; she screams angrily at them but when they stop the car and chase them they run. When cornered, she kicks one in the groin while he fights the other one, until she picks up the knife they lost; one of them runs away and she cuts the other’s ass so he runs too. She feels inebriated from the experience, tells him “God I love you” and he undress her there under the water pouring down, rips off her top and they have wild sex.
Later on, in a shop, she likes a necklace and he says “then take it” and walks away, and she steals it. He can manipulate her to do anything.
He buys a bed and tells her to lie down and spread her legs in front of the lady seller. He buys a whip and tries it on her leg while in the shop.
The strip scene starts with a close up shot on the button “power”: it’s to start the music of course, but it’s also very representative of what is going on. She’s wearing the clothes he chose for her, and jokingly she plays sexy dancing around, undressing for him while he watches her. She goes out on the balcony and takes it all off and they kiss.
There’s a small scene with a painter, her day life going on.
John wants to play a game, he throws some money on the floor and tells her to crawl towards him. She doesn’t like it, she tries to please him but then stops saying that it’s stupid. His only reply is “crawl”, said twice. “I don’t want to” - “get on all fours and crawl. I don’t want to argue with you, now crawl” and he takes off his belt. She looks scared, he insists, she says no, he beats the floor with the belt, she screams, he tells her to pick up the money, she yells that she doesn’t want to, he insists, she cries then picks up the money and throws it at him. Now he smiles, he tells her that she loves that game, she screams that she hates it, but then he kisses her.
At work she walks like a zombie; Bruce comes to take Molly out, she’s surprised and looks at them go out. It’s not that she’s jealous or anything, it felt more like she was looking at her past life ending, or at the memory of how she once was.
John leaves a message for her to meet him in a hotel room; she goes, finds the room empty, he phones to say “Elizabeth I love you, I have something I want you to do for me”, and there’s a blindfold in a drawer, but she doesn’t like the idea. She undresses and waits for him looking all sexy in her underwear, but when he arrives he only says “it was a simple thing I asked you to do, now do it!” so she puts it on, and again he says that he loves her. A woman comes in and starts touching her, ultimately taking off her blindfold. During all this Elizabeth looks very uncomfortable. When John starts touching that woman, looking at Elizabeth to make sure she’s watching him, she can’t bear it anymore, she gets up, fights and runs out. He runs after her, asks her how it felt to be out of control. She runs into a nightclub where lots of men are looking at a man and a woman having sex, and they look at her, she’s crying, she starts kissing a man under John’s eyes until he comes closer and kiss each other.
At the party for the gallery that they’ve been talking about throughout the whole movie, she looks like she feels out of place, like she lacks air. The old painter is probably the only one who notices her crying in a corner. She runs to the bathroom, feels sick. Later, in bed with John, she cries while he sleeps, then she starts taking her things. He wakes up and sighs, watching her pack a bag.
He says “you leaving? You won’t stay?” - she looks at him with tears in her eyes, he sighs and turns his back, then he tells her something about him, youngest of six brothers, with parents who retired and now he supports them. She says “It’s too late”. He tells her that there’s been a lot of other women “but I’ve never felt anything like this before” and “I never counted on loving you so much” - which may be part of why he pushed it so far, as if he wanted to push her away maybe.
She says “you knew it would be over when one of us said stop” and “you wouldn’t say it. I almost waited too long” - she knew it too, very well, which is why she never said no to anything he told her/ordered to do.
Liz tells him that she’ll send someone to get her stuff, and he can only call her name before she goes out the door. He doesn’t move, stares at the door and then says “I love you”. She’s out already, walking away. He keeps looking at the door: “would you please come back... by the time I count to fifty?” and he starts counting, pacing the room, while she walks away crying, he counts and looks at the door, and they both look sad.
The last image shows her walking outside, while he moves back into his bedroom.
ITA nove settimane e mezzo
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