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Movie:		7.0
Picture:		6.0
Sound:		6.0
Extras:		2.0
Score:		6.0

Director(s):	Adrian Lyne
Writer(s):	Amy Holden Jones (Screenplay), Jack Engelhard (Novel)
Starring:	Billy Connolly • Demi Moore • Oliver Platt • Robert Redford • Woody Harrelson • Billy Bob Thornton
Genre:	Romance
Release Date:	June 09, 2009
Rated:

List Price:	DVD - $8.49 ; Blu-ray - $19.99
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Much in the way that Basic Instinct the previous year had Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs and the whole world hitting the pause button to the exclusion of everything else in the movie, Indecent Proposal was a film that rode to success on a single, solitary aspect of itself – the premise. Indecent Proposal ran with the oh-so nineties idea of a down-on-their-luck couple, David and Diana (Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore), facing financial ruin only to be offered a lifeline by billionaire industrialist John Gage (Robert Redford). Gage offers to pay them $1 million for one night with her, thus putting the question to couples all over the world – what would you do? In a time before the internet and our tabloid culture had erased the word taboo from our vocabulary, this became dinner-party catnip for the sexually repressed masses.

While this simple tale of true love and sanitized prostitution marketed itself as a couple’s movie, this is a flick aimed squarely at the ladies. A vicarious piece of candy-coated wish-fulfillment whereby the hunky billionaire and her suitably tenacious true love duke it out for her affections while a million middle-aged gals in frumpy nightgowns and curlers lean over to henpecked husbands and ask: “What if it were me?”

But before we get to that we first have to be shown just how blissfully in love they are. There’s a whole bunch of grainy 16mm footage of their courtship, and an engagement complete with a cheap plastic ring to show just how non-materialistic they are! Money doesn’t matter to these folks, no sir. They are homemakers – literally. She sells real estate and he’s an architect. Not that they let that get in the way of their love, mind you. They cuddle in their underwear and screw on the kitchen floor and everything. But then disaster! The recession hits and David is laid off work and suddenly they’re unable to meet the payments on the dream home he designed for them. Off to Vegas then where some more typically nineties ups and downs at the tables (eyes peeled for a before he was famous cameo from Billy Bob Thornton) have them standing on the brink before charismatic billionaire Gage, drawn to her from a crowd of hundreds, makes his offer.

After much in the way of hand-wringing (a couple of hours actually) David and Diana come to the conclusion that they are strong enough (“It’s just my body. It’s not my mind.”), and they take the deal. But rather than their problems being over, they’ve just begun; because, of course, it’s not just her body, it is her mind! So after this deal with the Devil and the Devil seemingly unwilling to let things go, this idyllic young couple is thrust into turmoil. Redford is unsurprisingly brilliant as the aloof, controlling millionaire playing an aloof, controlling billionaire. Harrelson shows more depth than audiences at the time had come to expect given his man-child tendencies. Moore of course carved out a career playing feisty women holding their own against powerful men.

Now forget for a moment that the film never actually touches on any of the practical ramifications of such an arrangement (what about the tax issue?), it doesn’t ever really touch on any of the emotional ones either. Rather David suddenly does an abrupt about-face on the whole idea (too late of course) and the impossibly charming Gage is simply too intrigued by this enigmatic young woman to sign off on his end of things without making a play for her himself.

As such, this quickly devolves from a vaguely plausible couples dilemma into pure female empowerment, filled with grand romantic gestures, whereby the woman gets to have her cake, eat it, and order a round of seconds and even thirds. Diana ultimately makes the decision to go, then she makes the decision to stay, then she makes the decision to come back. Meanwhile she gets to indulge in a little guilt-sanctioned, high-end strange (she did it for him you see!) while the husband pines like a broken man, and even goes so far as to consent to her request for a divorce.

In the end it’s the monorail nature of the writing (Jack Englehard’s novel adapted by Amy Holden Jones, writer of all five Beethoven movies) that serves to undo a potentially gutsy idea. The script simply beats you over the head with its own pre-conceived notions of love and fidelity to the point that you're left too dizzy to entertain any of your own. Money isn’t important – until it is. Their bond is impenetrable – until it isn’t. This aftermath of this arrangement they naively entered into is a bridge too far for their relationship – until it’s not. And everyone is back where they started, seemingly no worse off. Piffle! But hey, it’s Hollywood.

Blu-ray Bonus Features

A single commentary track by director Adrian Lyne, who despite having directed such provocative, energetic fare as Flashdance and 9 ½ Weeks comes across as quite unapologetically dull. Starting the track with the admission that “it’s been quite a while, so please bare with me if I forget stuff…” the interest level only deteriorates from there. They shot that opening pier sequence in Malibu, don’t you know!