YEAR: 1999
DIRECTOR: John McTiernan
KEY ACTORS: Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 6.8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 70%
SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ Fuckable cast – Brosnan is at his hottest and Russo is literally on fire
✔️ Sex positive themes – borderline case as Denis Leary’s sex negative ‘And you don’t care what that makes you?’ cop isn’t shouted down as much as I’d like, but they relish sex and pleasure so much that it has to pass
✔️ Definitely a source of fantasy material – I even wanted to fuck on marble stairs because of this film
✔️ Endlessly rewatchable
❌ Fails the Bechdel test – the only two named female characters don’t say a word to each other, despite sharing scenes. Shame.
As always, this contains spoilers so watch the film before you read on…
STREAMING: Netflix, YouTube (from £7.99), Amazon Prime (to rent £3.49 or buy £4.99), iTunes (buy £8.99)
The remake of The Thomas Crown Affair came out in 1999 when I was fourteen. Some teenagers do discover their sexuality at a very young age but I was not that teenager. I was sixteen when I had my first kiss, eighteen when I had sex and nearly thirty before I had sex that I consistently enjoyed. A friend once described me as ‘a bookish strawberry blonde who liked chemistry, sailing and Alistair MacLean novels,’ which paints an uncannily accurate image of who I was!
I also loved James Bond. I loved James Bond with such a nerdy passion that it could easily have been my Mastermind specialist subject as I knew All The Facts. I had, however, never seen a Bond film at the cinema. Despite being technically old enough to see 12-rated Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997, my parents still felt I was too young and wouldn’t take me so I was literally gagging for the release of The World Is Not Enough in November 1999.
But before then, in August 1999, came The Thomas Crown Affair, a slick heist movie with current Bond star Pierce Brosnan in the eponymous title role and directed by Die Hard’s director John McTiernan no less. There was no way I was going to miss it! (And yes, I appreciate the irony that I wasn’t allowed to see TND when I was 12 and yet could see a 15-rated film at fourteen, but never mind…) So it was that fourteen year old sexually naive me went to the cinema to see what still ranks as the sexiest mainstream movie I have ever seen! Fuck me, this movie is hot!!
It was released before EL James ruined the reputation of the playboy millionaire and the whole movie had a frisson of deliciousness that dazzled me from the start. It has a mischievous and glamorous aura that made everything feel desirable and luxurious, and I was hooked. I wanted the clothes, the boats, the style. Everything!
Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan), the eponymous hero, is a bored millionaire who concocts the perfect art heist, stealing a Monet in broad daylight from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. So clever is his scheme that the NYPD are struggling to unravel it and it falls to Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), an insurance investigator, to kickstart the investigation. And, wow, the chase that ensues! Banning and Crown seduce each other in the most magnificent cat and mouse game, neither quite able to tell if the painting, the game or the person is the biggest attraction.
Watching them, I wanted to play that sort of game. Their verbal sparring is electric and, although I read some criticism of their chemistry, I believed it. It’s all part of their game so of course it’s a little contrived. They’re both too clever for their own good but it’s hot as hell to watch them play with each other!
I don’t really want to dwell on the original movie (as I didn’t really like it), except to say that my mother still claims that the chess game between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway is one of the sexiest scenes ever filmed. I’m not so sure; for me, it is too contrived. Dunaway running her fingers suggestively over the chess pieces and close ups of fingers against lips may have been risqué in 1968 but now it feels like a sledgehammer!
It’s funny – the oxymoronic blatant subtlety of the 1968 version feels overdone but the rawness of the 1999 version hides nothing and yet is so hot and really works. Just the dance scene alone is enough to get my pulse racing! Never mind Dirty Dancing, Crown asking Banning if she wants to dance or if she wants to dance ensured that I always think of dancing as a potentially highly sexual act.
I mentioned in the sex, lies and videotape post that seeing that movie in the early 2000s was the beginning of the end of thinking that movie sex was in any way real but I had not yet come to this realisation when I saw this. And although time and experience have taught me that fucking on a marble floor and staircase probably isn’t as hot as it looks, their sex still turns me on; it’s still what I’d want. The laughter, the sweaty exhaustion, their chemistry and obvious comfort in their nakedness is just kind of wonderful. They look like they’re having fun and I think that’s what sex should be!
This all also meant that Rene Russo became a kind of feminist hero for me, although for reasons that would shock Piers Morgan! She was 45 when the film was released, which seemed so old when I was fourteen, but I absolutely definitely wanted to be her when I grew up. Successful, intelligent, well-dressed, beautiful in a way that didn’t try to mask or minimise her age, and with the kind of sexual confidence that means she could turn up to a black and white ball in a see-through dress, no underwear and red scarf, and fucking get her man! She is just incredible. From her first appearance with hot tousled hair, big sunglasses and stockings, I was in love. Coming in the same year as Britney Spears apparently showing us what was sexy in her ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ video, this alternate and much more appealing image of female sexuality was frankly revolutionary.
Until recently, that’s as far as my thoughts on this film went. Russo is fabulous, the sex is hot and the chase is electrifying! Except I now realise that it’s not that simple.
It was only when writing this post that it occurred to me that all they really had was the chase, and this probably wasn’t the romantic ideal that I thought it was. Although the film ends with the two of them flying off into the sunset, I don’t know how much faith I’d have that they are still together now, ten years later. [Edit: oh my gosh, 1999 was actually twenty years ago!!!] The seduction was everything! And they know it. Crown even calls Banning out on this, asking why none of her relationships lasted. Once the chase was won, did they have enough to hold onto? Each had to ask the other if it was just about the painting, each is presented as being too independent to settle down and the fact that he successfully uses jealousy to unsettle her suggests that she wouldn’t be happy in an open relationship. So without the energy of the chase, would they still be happy?
As is so often the case, it all comes down to trust. After everything they’ve done, to each other and to themselves, can they trust each other? As Faye Dunaway’s psychiatrist asks Crown, under what extraordinary circumstances would he allow that to happen?
Whatever their future, it doesn’t change how fucking sexy this film is or my enjoyment watching it. Hottest movie sex scene of all time – I challenge you to find better!
Next week: Fifty Shades of Grey!
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