| One of the biggest teases in film history, this film's sensational plot finds a young wife (Demi Moore) solicited for sex by a wealthy bachelor (Robert Redford), for which the latter offers to pay a cool million bucks to her and her underachieving husband (Woody Harrelson). The two accept Redford's deal, and their marriage is ruined. The twist in the film, though, is that the sin doesn't lie with the rich guy, but rather with this unfocused, immature, equivocating couple who would do such a thing, naively believing it would get their lives on track. Director Adrian Lyne, who caused an even greater stir by filming Lolita (the one starring Jeremy Irons), thus pulls a kind of thinking person's bait and switch, promising something tawdry and then turning the story around so its focus is on a rite of passage for the estranged spouses. Still, Lyne has some peculiarly garish ideas at times: the final disposition of that million dollars is like a joke out of Monty Python. --Tom Keogh |
|
 about wealth |
| Review Date: March 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: M. József, |
| amazingly objective... love is the greatest wealth on earth and poor is the man who is in lack of it... this experience had to be eternized... |
A movie with a big name cast that actually works
|
| Review Date: July 1, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Donna Di Giacomo, Philadelphia, PA |
Usually, when a movie has a bunch of big names (that brings with it a very overinflated budget and a beyond crappy storyline), you know it's bound to suck. That wasn't the case with Indecent Proposal.
Sure, the plot became the favorite punchline of every comedian - professional and amateur - in the country but it also managed to stir up discussion among the fiscally conservative (meaning broke) portion of the population: Would you have a one-night stand with a wealthy person, or anyone who was offering you money, in order to make ends meet? (In other words, would you be a temporary hooker?)
Okay, the majority of us will never meet a billionaire or even a millionaire (who is single!) in a casino who will be bowled over by our movie-star looks but if you were on hard times, would you do it for the money? (You can hear the bill collectors right now pushing you, "Say yes! Say yes!")
Robert Redford, for all the age cracks, is a damn good actor (and better looking than these dorks half his age). Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore had great chemistry between them to really carry the movie and make it an enjoyable viewing experience.
A big-name movie that one can watch over and over. |
A treasure
|
| Review Date: June 7, 2004 |
| Reviewer: Carrie Batcheller, Londonderry NH |
| This movie is definitely a treasure, beautifully acted, beautifully filmed, its the kind of movie that stays with you. I can't say much about the movie that hasn't already been said except that I recommend the soundtrack also, the movie score is excellent. |
very entertaining, missing only a strong male second lead
|
| Review Date: January 30, 2002 |
| Reviewer: , |
| What amuses me the most is that the men reviewing this film seem to be so severely outraged at the main content -- a wealthy man proposing to buy another man's wife for a single night. Looks like the old morality hangs on of the wife being the man's exclusive property. On the other hand, if it were Cindy Crawford, say, offering to buy the husband for a night? Well, the film is about a billionaire who is played very elegantly and sympathetically by Robert Redford, who quite frankly is many a woman's secret fantasy lover after he shot to fame in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Granted, if in real life he made this offer (even without the money), many women think that they would take him up on it. In the film, his character John Gage is far too attractive -- good sense of humor, personable, didn't swear (Woody Harrelson did enough of that), and gently teased Demi Moore even while he seduced her, not by money but by temptations that her husband David, played by Harrelson, couldn't offer. Things like emotional maturity. The film, because Harrelson was miscast in what should have been another sympathetic role, was uneven. In scenes of the marriage, we find that there is a lot of abuse going on -- playful abuse, but even play-threatening someone with a knife is not cute. Supposedly David and Diana, the two marrieds, are achingly devoted and yet there is never any real warmth. It seems they are only clinging to each other, and after Gage makes his monetary offer, the two spend a night tossing and turning in bed until they finally discuss it. We hear then that the two lovers were not so devoted before they married. Other playmates abound, and so the devotedness pales. What we start to see is a very sexy but also conservative woman who is trapped in a marriage with a man who could be easily classed as a childish jackass. Enter Gage, and the story begins when his and Diana's eyes meet, long before she gets the scent of money. There are really too few romantic scenes between these two. Their tale is told too briefly, since we have to see many scenes of David suffering after he cheerfully agreed to sell his wife for the night. Sadly, though, the ending has Diana returning to David, probably to spend the rest of her life threatening him with a knife. And our last view of Gage, a wealthy but lonely man, is as he is standing on the beach in the sunset, a man so noble that he gave up a woman simply because he thought she did not look at him in the right way, that she looked at another man in that way. Of course, in a few months she'd have forgotten David and looked at Gage as he wanted, but that idea didn't suit the storyline. Far better to have David claim that Diana was only with Gage not because he was the better man but because he had more money. That wasn't true. The John Gage character, even without Redford's expertise at fleshing out the man or at being romantic, would still have been a better person than was David, who spent lots of time being crude, lazy, whining, getting drunk and swearing, being sober and swearing . . . Well, anyhow, this film has some inane elements, but overall Redford pulled it off for everyone. His strong character contributed to the romantic tension and kept your interest. Moore played too repressed and timid a woman. She was actually no romantic match for Redford, although the scenes where they kiss are about the most romantic kisses I've seen in film. Her character, though, didn't talk back enough to either Gage or David -- she was passive, accepting male dominance rather than establishing her own control over her life. Of course, strong women in Hollywood films don't get the man, or in this case both men, but end up alone and that wasn't what this film was about. |
Indecent Proposal
|
| Review Date: August 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer: RC, |
| I love the movie for it's true meaning of love and the fine actors who played their parts so well. |
|
No details are available for this product