2nd half loses its way

“Indecent Proposal” is an adventurous couple movie- it asks a provocative question that might lead to an uncomfortable conversation on the car ride home for those willing to think about it. You might even say some of those conversations might have been more entertaining than the film- i’m sure most of them would at least be more coherent.

It’s all about David and Diana (Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore), a couple together since high school. He’s an architect, she’s a real estate agent and they’re both very much in love before a recession hits them both hard and they have to go to Vegas in order to stretch what meager money they have to save a house David is building.

These are modest people in desperate straits and director Adrien Lynne revels in the tension as they try to save themselves. He also gives the film an elegant sensuousness- just seeing Demi Moore roll around on top of satin sheets strewn with dollar bills, followed by the sex scene with Harrelson, hammers home the idea that nothing is more titillating than sex and money.

Not everything lasts though and that seems to be another lesson that keeps popping back up in the script. This couple faces its biggest test with John Gage (Robert Redford), the billionaire who Diana catches the eye of. He has her sit in on a game of craps for luck, he wins, and suddenly both she and David are in his good graces, with a catch.

Gage wants Diana, supposedly for a night. Diana is careful to make it clear she is not for sale early on, but Gage continues with the offers. He believes you can buy people, and when he tries to buy Diana for a million, he addresses the question to David and not her. We never realize much about him, but he seems to not have a high regard of women.


Is the million dollars for one night with her worth it though? There’s the question that turned this movie into a box office success. Sure, Gage catches D+D at a low point of desperation. We’re led to believe financial worries are the prime motivator, maybe Diana is also a bit intrigued by Gage, with his stately handsomeness. Of course most women would definitely consider a night with Redford anyway. Could you go on with your lives afterwards though? Is it just one night of “hall pass” fun or do you see real feelings getting in the way?


I kinda wish the second half of this movie would have just delved into the night in question more. To see Redford in all his manipulative, high powered, handsome glory try to seduce the apprehensive Moore. The heart of it would come from Harrelson, so guilt driven that he, maybe for the first time, truly understands his wife is priceless.


Instead it grows into something somewhat erratic. David’s masculine impotence grows two fold as his land is taken away from him anyway and his wife refuses to tell him what happened that night. He becomes a sad sack with no further motivation.


Gage goes from powerful James Bond type to just a thirsty rich guy- popping back up again and again in scene after scene that kinda makes you lose respect for him. Diana is probably the biggest disappointment; what agency she has in seeing right through Gage’s tricks in the first half is undone by a decision to be with him in the second.


All three go through a contrived bit of realization- for example, what Gage does in the end after spending so much time trying to get her is equally senseless. He suddenly cares about genuine love? Harrelson stupidly ditching her- effectively getting her to run to Redford and Moore forgetting all the ickiness about Redford to be with him is equally senseless.


“Indecent Proposal” gets to a point of being so slow, so maudlin, and unbelievable that it doesn’t even hit on a fun level anymore. To steal from “Honeymoon in Vegas”, a film just like it; I don’t even think flying Elvis’ could save the second half of this movie.