Movie Review: 9 and 1/2 Weeks

I find it incredible that I cannot find a single thoughtful review about this movie.  Perhaps I am not looking in the right places.  I should like to offer one, in any case.  I should also enjoy reading the book now that I have seen and re-seen the screen version.  There is much to digest and enjoy.

Another Mr Gray Dominant, another frustrated lady-friend submission.  In this case, though, Mr Gray presents as the experienced Master with the calm, powerful Alpha-male command: he smiles easily (in fact, almost constantly); he speaks softly; he commands financial and personal wealth as if the normal obstacles to survival (food, shelter, employment, good health) were only imaginary.  He doesn't simply prune a garden, with his sub: he chisels a statue to perfect form.

What I enjoy most about this movie is watching the process by which Mr Gray "hypnotizes" her.  "I can't concentrate," she confesses at one point.  "I think I've been hypnotized."  The process unfolds delectably.  He leads her, first, out of her comfort zone and into a beautiful apartment on the water.  He (safely!) lets her experience the thrill of danger:  "Nobody can hear if you call out," he reminds her.  "I don't know you, and you don't know me."  He prepares the bed as if they will enjoy it together, on their first outing.  The longing is written all over her face, but she is overcome with good sense and declares that she would leave now.  It is of no matter because the seed is planted; and he follows-up (the next day and thereafter, demonstrating consistency, romance, and commitment to the process) with red flowers delivered to her door.  The relationship that unfolds, then, is one that is hardwired to the initial tantalizing and the first proof of trust.

There is a deliberate gap in the action: Mr Gray threatens to spank her for being a "nosy parker".  She is outraged and loses her composure: but we cut, then, to a scene of her having spent the night with him and his making breakfast for her in the morning.  Breaking a few eggs, as it were, in order to make an omelet.  Literally and figuratively.  That gap in the action speaks volumes:  sometimes what happens behind closed doors is strictly private, purely personal, and something that only the lovers would understand.  "To love in a way that feels right for me," as we recall from The Secretary.  Did John Gray make good on his promise to spank, in 9 and 1/2 weeks?  At that point, so much have I personally bought-in to the premises of the movie (and I have already seen James Spader perform the act with as much cool and mastery as I've ever seen, in the other movie) that I'm now begging for it in my mind.

I, too, have been hypnotized.