From the outside looking in, an erotic thriller that caused widespread outrage and backlash, still only holds Rotten Tomatoes scores of 34 and 47 percent from critics and audiences, and won three Razzies from seven nominations including Worst Picture would be deemed a forgettable flop, but Indecent Proposal was a monster at the box office.
Directed by Adrian Lyne – the master of salacious cinema responsible for such hot under the collar favorites as 9½ Weeks, Fatal Attraction, and Unfaithful to name but three – it goes without saying that even though it’s based on a novel, you absolutely couldn’t get away with making this movie today.
Why? Well, the reason is obvious and simple, considering the entire plot revolves around Robert Redford’s enigmatic billionaire offering Woody Harrelson’s financially-struggling architect the princely sum of a million dollars for the express purpose of sleeping with his wife, played by Demi Moore.
Needless to say, people were not best pleased at the time for having the female lead existing as a transactional character in a film dubbed exploitative from the off, not that it did a damned thing to prevent Indecent Proposal from becoming one of the highest-grossing releases of 1993 after hoovering up a whopping $266 million at the box office.
30 years on, and despite the fact it would be an understatement of epic proportions to say it doesn’t hold up through the prism of modern society, streaming subscribers are giving it a whirl anyway. Per FlixPatrol, the contentious commercial success hasn’t just reappeared on Netflix’s worldwide watch-list, but it’s steaming up the iTunes charts, too.