Basic Instinct

Hollywood has had an up and down relationship with eroticism and, as such, has had an up and down relationship with the erotic thriller. The silent era had actresses whose entire career was based on playing “the Vamp” character: a kind of evil manipulatrix, often dressed provocatively and preying on men with their sexuality. However, during the Hays Code era, things were forced to be much more conservative. Despite that, in the midst of this repression, the 1940s gave rise to the sexually charged crime thriller, such as Double Indemnity, Laura, and The Postman Always Rings Twice. These movies flirted with eroticism, feminine sexuality, the archetype of the femme fatale, and many other taboo topics (for their day) all while cleverly staying within the lines of the production code by providing their thrills covertly and through implication. Then things cooled off for a bit.

About forty years later, in the mid 1980s, this sexually charged crime thriller was reborn, and became a staple of the notably thriller rich 1990s. Now, out from under the Hays Code, these thrillers made the covert overt, with full nudity, simulated sex, and references to then taboo kinks like pain play and bondage. In almost the center, time-wise, of this wave of erotic thrillers sits the release of Basic Instinct.

Basic Instinct is directed by Paul Verhoven, whose maximalism and heightened reality is not really a style for all seasons, so to speak. It can work very well in the dreamlike unreality of Total Recall but can come across as comically absurd, as in Starship Troopers. Here, however, it is almost perfect for Basic Instinct’s lurid tale of seduction, murder, and psychological manipulation.

Somewhere under the veneer of base titillation one misstep away from Cinemax softcore is a film that, while still not high art, at least offers a deeper experience than its reputation would imply. For instance, the script has some real moments of brilliance. One particularly stand out example is Sharon Stone’s obsession with murderers. As one of the many complex dualities established in regards to her character, it could be a professional hazard as a murder mystery author (researching killers) or part of her pathology (seeking out like-minded psychopaths). But that alone isn’t the brilliance. It gets even better as the film grows both her relationship with Michael Douglas and reveals more about his checkered past with the San Francisco police department. As their bond grows tighter, it becomes increasingly clear that he is yet another one of the killers/murderers that she finds herself so attracted to. That the people he killed were not unfortunate collateral damage but the result of malfeasance is fully vindicated by the film’s conclusion, where his quick to shoot nature once again reveals itself, this time not even aided by a coke addiction.

The ending is also somewhat clever in that it offers multiple different interpretations without being unnecessarily ambiguous. Unlike in Total Recall, where to some extent the point is to question the very reality of the film you just watched, Basic Instinct instead asks you to question the believability of the potential futures for the surviving characters. We are presented with three possible realities, set up by the textual and subtextual journey of the film, each with varying levels of believability. Perhaps things are exactly as they seem, the ice pick is coincidental, and the killer has been caught. Perhaps the killer is still at large but is not going to kill again, symbolized by the mystery novel and reality no longer marching in lockstep. Perhaps the killer is merely bidding her time until she strikes again. Personally, I rank these from least plausible to most plausible, as I imagine most viewers would, but I remain pleasantly surprised that if you sit down and think about it, all three could be true according to the logic of the movie. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that anything about a film most famous for showing the top of Sharon Stone’s pubic region would have me pondering its narrative complexity days after watching it.

On that topic, I think it is a great tragedy that all most people remember about the film is the interrogation scene where Stone crosses and uncrosses her legs to reveal that she isn’t wearing any underwear. That, combined with the numerous voyeuristic shots of her breasts, really overshadow an incredible performance. Stone is positively electric in this film, out shining all of her costars including leading man Michael Douglas. She lands the most subtle touches to her performance with a perfectly timed smirk or just the locked gaze of her eyes, making for a remarkable performance that somehow balances the cold and calculating, the believable vulnerability, and the hedonistically passionate that make up the facets of this enchantingly dangerous character. Watching her deftly dismantle Douglas’ character psychologically, unraveling his weakly constructed sense of self, as shown through him breaking his sobriety, returning to a nicotine habit, and losing the kind of logic and rationality that he ought to have as a senior detective, is a testament to both her performance and the quality of the script and direction that surrounds it. She absolutely kills it in this role, pun only slightly intended.

This all is not without some caveats. It is still an erotic thriller with all the seediness and base titillation that that implies. If characters doing lines of coke in a nightclub bathroom, lipstick lesbianism shown exclusively through the male gaze, sexual encounters with dubious consent, and other forms of shock entertainment hold little appeal for you, whatever good is to be found in the deeper than expected script and noteworthy performance from Sharon Stone will likely not be worth it. Along with that seedier story is also a lot of 90s era attitudes that haven’t aged so well. There is the dubious consent, mentioned above, which serves an important narrative purpose but whose aftermath feels quite disconnected from the societal norms we strive for today. The film’s attitudes toward the field of psychology are similarly outdated. Stone’s manipulative streak is contextually linked to her profession as a psychotherapist; she’s the villainous head shrink rather than the compassionate caregiver. Her foil, also a psychotherapist, acts extremely inappropriately as well. She has a romantic and sexual relationship with a client, gives away privileged information from confidential sessions without consent, does not recuse herself from situations where she ought to, and is generally a walking ethics violation. It would not be a stretch to say that this movie could well have done to psychotherapy what Jaws did to sharks.

Basic Instinct has this sense that it knows exactly what it is. It is lurid, seedy, and melodramatic. It has just enough nakedness and simulated sex to wind the audience up. It leans into those things, as if to ask the question: “Why can’t an erotic thriller be thrilling in every way possible, without sacrificing quality?” The answer is more muddied. Yes, the story is clever and the performances delight, especially Stone and to a lesser extent Douglas. However, the closer you get to that amorphous line between high art and pornography, the more you have to acknowledge you are making a movie no one wants to watch with their parents.

Would Recommend: If well acted erotic thrillers are your kind of film.

Would Not Recommend: If the sordid nature of its subject matter is not what you’re looking for in a night’s entertainment.