Classic Movie Review: 'Indecent Proposal' at 30

Indecent Proposal (1993)

Directed by Adrian Lyne

Written by Amy Holden Jones

Starring Demi Moore, Robert Redford, Woody Harrelson

Release Date April 7th, 1993

Published May 31st, 2023

Indecent Proposal tries to skirt the issue of its sweaty desperation with a softcore stylishness that had already, by 1993, become a cliché trait of director Adrian Lyne. For all of the talent he clearly has, and the discourse his movies have inspired, the one consistent thing about Lyne is that he enjoys watching attractive people cavort in little to no clothing while sweating profusely. If you can rely on Lyne for anything, it's getting well known stars to doff their duds to provide late night masturbatory thrills. Not there is anything terribly wrong with that.

It's the pretense that Lyne has about his movies that I take issue with. Lyne appears to have quite a high opinion of his movies which, without the imprimatur of big movie stars, would be late night cable fare at best. High minded as Adrian Lyne may be, it's the smut that really revs his engine. In Indecent Proposal he is desperately reaching for a respectability always slightly out of reach, probably because his other hand is reaching for a particular body part that his work aims to stimulate far more than his lurid melodrama might stimulate the brain.

That said, there is no denying Lyne's talent for base mass appeal. Lyne's gaudy, gauzy, fantasies, just on the dark side of morality, always seemed grab hold of the culture, even if only for a short time. With Indecent Proposal, Lyne made an impact with a very simple premise: What would you do if someone offered you a million dollars for sex, with the permission of your partner? I'm being quite loose with that question. The reality is it wasn't much of a question for the masses but, rather, for the male audience. Would you let your wife sleep with another man for $1 million dollars?

Indeed, the woman in question, played by the gorgeous Demi Moore, is rather superfluous to the drama of Indecent Proposal. She's the object in play between two arrogant, possessive and deeply insecure men. That might not sound so bad except that neither the movie or the men involved, played by Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford, are remotely aware of how insecure they come off. Each wants to play the 'alpha' male with Redford's fortune proving to be the deciding factor as to who is indeed the bigger dog in this yard.

The opportunity to explore male insecurity is thwarted by a narrative more interested in moral failings like greed and infidelity than in examining where the real failings of these characters exist, in their massive, unfulfilled egos. The film romanticizes Harrelson's jealous possessiveness, as if he hadn't encouraged his wife to sleep with Redford, and was a victim of her greed and his own indecisiveness in the face of a moral quandary. Jealousy is not a cute quality, it's not romantic, it's ugly and creepy and while it happens to everyone, it's not a good quality and it makes Harrelson's character more of a creep than the heartbroken romantic of Lyne's conception.

As for Redford, his persona is impenetrable. There are hints at a deeper, darker truth hidden behind a respectable veneer, but Redford is so guarded and dignified that we get just about nothing out of him. He lustily stares down Demi Moore and pursues her with a callous arrogance identifiable in many over-privileged sex pests, but he's also Robert Redford, American golden God. He's ostensibly the villain of the piece but often he comes off as a more reasonable choice than Harrelson's hangdog jealous husband.

The movie and Redford appear to lose interest in examining the rich man character after he serves his zeitgeist grabbing purpose, offering a million dollars to sleep with another man's wife. After that, he's just a pest and a stalker who appears to woo Moore's character by attrition, wearing her down with constant interruptions in her life, extravagant gifts, and the fact that, despite being a creep, he looks like Robert Redford. Never mind that he's really only appealing in comparison to Harrelson's green-eyed monster husband who appears constantly on the verge of a meltdown simply because his wife had sex with someone other than him.

In the internet age, I could easily envision Twitter users calling Indecent Proposal 'Cucked: The Movie.' That's about the level of seriousness this movie deserves. In the end, a film that could have been used as a strong interrogation of toxic male ego in relation to female sexuality, ends up being a limp provocation in place of an actual movie. Like most of Adrian Lyne's work, the premise and the provocative question at the heart of it, is way more interesting than the actual movie he made. You can get more out of asking friends what they would do with an 'Indecent Proposal' scenario than you could ever get from this wet noodle of a sexy drama.

Indecent Proposal was recently the subject of my new podcast, a spinoff of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, Everyone's a Critic 1993. Each week myself and my co-hosts, Amy K and M.J take a look at a movie that was released 30 years ago that weekend to examine the way the movie is viewed 30 years later. What is the cultural reputation of the movie three decades later? Has the movie stood the test of time? How much have movies changed in 30 years with this movie as the baseline for the conversation? We do the show every week and you can hear it on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast feed, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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