365 days is about a successful but unhappy young woman whose path crosses with that of a young, handsome mafia boss. He kidnaps her and gives her a deadline of one year to fall in love with him. Despite the rough introduction, she eventually gives in to his charms and falls in love with him. The central core of the movie is domination, or how the male protagonist uses his raw masculinity to completely overwhelm the girl until she eventually gives in to her lust, so, this movie is a very obvious copycat of 50 Shades of Grey.
Now, this movie isn't exactly bad. It's not good either, mind you, but once you understand why it was made in the first place, you can at least understand its motivation. There are two ways of looking at this film:
1. You try to look at this movie at a normal light, and you immediately notice one thing: it draws a lot of inspiration from 50 Shades of Grey, but it adds a completely ludicrous kidnapping scenario. It's like if 50 Shades collided at very high speeds with Beauty and the Beast, then someone filmed the tragic, messy aftermath and sold it as a movie. The first act seems pretty straightforward: the young girl is deeply frustrated with her love life and is set to meet the handsome, assertive gangster. But how the meeting goes is where the craziness starts: he intentionally snatches her off the street and holds her captive. Then tells her he will only let her go if she manages to not fall in love with him in one year. This already feels like a plot picked straight from a Law and Order: SVU episode. The explanation he gives for why he went after her in the first place just adds another thick layer of insanity to the bananas cake. The events that follow are so astoundingly bizarre that they boggle the mind. It doesn't take too long for her to accept her predicament, and after what appears to be no more than a day, she is already playing flirty games and teasing him. Once she gets her cell phone and her laptop back, she never bothers to, say, call the police, or tell her family what's going on. For half of the movie, she acts more like a girl just teasing and trying make her crush jealous, than like a woman who has just being abducted for sexual purposes by a deranged murderer. In any other context, seeing her giving in, sleeping with him and start a relationship with her kidnapper would be a horrific story of a poor woman being forced against her will and, after getting completely broken inside, accepting her fate. Seeing her mistake her inevitable Stockholm Syndrome for truly falling in love is not only tragic, it almost insults the intelligence of the viewer. The ending doesn't help either, because it tries to be somber and serious, but by the time the film ends, those two words have already flown through the window long ago. This movie seems even more baffling and out of place in our current times, the era of the fight for gender equality, the struggle for greater respect for women and the MeToo movement.
I know you are thinking this is incomprehensible and bizarre. I sure thought that way myself for the first half. But then you realize you are simply looking at it wrong. This is still no Citizen Kane, mind you, but it has a very simple reason to exist.
2. This movie is a complete fantasy. The female lead is in an extremely relatable situation: she has a vaguely defined but supposedly successful job, but her love life is a mess. Her deadbeat boyfriend is an amalgamation of many things that are collectively considered very bad traits for a male partner: lazy, makes tasteless jokes about her in front of their friends, doesn't pay attention to her feelings and needs and, (shocking), leaves her behind on her birthday, to go see a place they had previously agreed to go to together. He also seems very indifferent to her sexual desires, and this is the crucial part I'll get to shortly. So far, very generic romantic movie stuff. The next step we the audience expect is for a knight in shiny armor to appear and save her from the dead relationship, but this is where the normal movie stuff ends: her savior just outright kidnaps and threatens her. He takes her to his house and doesn't allow her to leave. This dangerous criminal turns out to be an extremely dominating man. He grabs her violently, thrashes her around and menacingly states that she will cave in to him. He also turns out to be very rich. He lives in a gigantic castle. He takes her to shop for expensive clothes in luxurious stores, gives her refined dinners and procures any dish she desires. He is also tall, muscular, with a gruff beard and a generous amount of chest hair. Even when she tries to tease him and gain the upper hand, he turns the tables and subdues her. He is, by and large, the textbook definition of an alpha male. When she tries to make him feel jealous by dancing with another man in a nightclub, our hero responds by shooting the offender in the hands, and frowning at her until she apologizes. And when they finally make love, it is implied that it was everything she ever hoped for - he makes her feel like a Woman, dammit. This is the moment when something clicks in your mind. This movie takes a lot of influences from 50 Shades, but they didn't come from nowhere. Let's get a little dirty here. How many of us here have played, or heard about someone who plays, fetishes and fantasies with their SOs, and how many of those fantasies usually include popular, silly scenarios like the boyfriend/husband roleplaying as a police officer, catching the bandit played by the wife/girlfriend, and taking her into custody for "interrogation and full body search"? Then it hits you. This movie doesn't make logical sense because it doesn't have to. It's just two hours of a bland, female lead who's a stand in for the woman watching the movie, and living the fantastic, outlandish fantasy that I suppose many girls and women out there enjoy thinking about: being seduced and dominated by an otherwordly alpha male who then vigorously sates their sexual desires. This movie just uses a "girl gets kidnapped" scenario, 50 Shades simply went the more niche route with BDSM. Simple, nonsensical plots that serve purely to let the female viewers vicariously live a sexual fantasy.
I'm going to say it out loud: this is a porn movie. It's a porno made for women. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. This is nothing more than a pure, sexual guilty pleasure that obviously would never work in the real world. Nothing different from a "traditional" porn movie. The only real difference is the public it is aimed at. A normal porn movie for men is going to cater to men's fantasies: ludicrous setups, gorgeous women gladly doing everything the man demands, explicit images of intercourse. This porn movie (and 50 Shades as well) caters to fantasies that are more common for many women: a strong, dominating male figure that takes them on expensive trips to majestic locations and is completely focused on pleasuring the woman, not himself. The only thing this movie really does wrong at this point is being marketed as a normal, traditional movie when it so clearly is not. If you are a woman, you are probably going to enjoy living this fantasy, and there is no shame in that. It just makes me realize how grossly biased the movie industry is when it comes to porn: we are okay with all the millions of silly porno flicks and videos aimed at men, but when we see a silly sexual fetish movie aimed at women, the moviegoing public collectively pops their monocles in outrage.
I watched this movie with my wife and while we were trying to take it seriously, we both complained how bizarre the plot is. But once we understand what is actually at play here, we see it in a whole different light. This is a porn movie, and don't let the lack of explicit imagery fool you (there is lots of nudity however, so beware). If you are still not convinced and will still watch it thinking it is a "traditional" movie, don't bother, and save the disappointment. If, however, you understand and accept it for what it is, then go ahead at enjoy it.
Now, this movie isn't exactly bad. It's not good either, mind you, but once you understand why it was made in the first place, you can at least understand its motivation. There are two ways of looking at this film:
1. You try to look at this movie at a normal light, and you immediately notice one thing: it draws a lot of inspiration from 50 Shades of Grey, but it adds a completely ludicrous kidnapping scenario. It's like if 50 Shades collided at very high speeds with Beauty and the Beast, then someone filmed the tragic, messy aftermath and sold it as a movie. The first act seems pretty straightforward: the young girl is deeply frustrated with her love life and is set to meet the handsome, assertive gangster. But how the meeting goes is where the craziness starts: he intentionally snatches her off the street and holds her captive. Then tells her he will only let her go if she manages to not fall in love with him in one year. This already feels like a plot picked straight from a Law and Order: SVU episode. The explanation he gives for why he went after her in the first place just adds another thick layer of insanity to the bananas cake. The events that follow are so astoundingly bizarre that they boggle the mind. It doesn't take too long for her to accept her predicament, and after what appears to be no more than a day, she is already playing flirty games and teasing him. Once she gets her cell phone and her laptop back, she never bothers to, say, call the police, or tell her family what's going on. For half of the movie, she acts more like a girl just teasing and trying make her crush jealous, than like a woman who has just being abducted for sexual purposes by a deranged murderer. In any other context, seeing her giving in, sleeping with him and start a relationship with her kidnapper would be a horrific story of a poor woman being forced against her will and, after getting completely broken inside, accepting her fate. Seeing her mistake her inevitable Stockholm Syndrome for truly falling in love is not only tragic, it almost insults the intelligence of the viewer. The ending doesn't help either, because it tries to be somber and serious, but by the time the film ends, those two words have already flown through the window long ago. This movie seems even more baffling and out of place in our current times, the era of the fight for gender equality, the struggle for greater respect for women and the MeToo movement.
I know you are thinking this is incomprehensible and bizarre. I sure thought that way myself for the first half. But then you realize you are simply looking at it wrong. This is still no Citizen Kane, mind you, but it has a very simple reason to exist.
2. This movie is a complete fantasy. The female lead is in an extremely relatable situation: she has a vaguely defined but supposedly successful job, but her love life is a mess. Her deadbeat boyfriend is an amalgamation of many things that are collectively considered very bad traits for a male partner: lazy, makes tasteless jokes about her in front of their friends, doesn't pay attention to her feelings and needs and, (shocking), leaves her behind on her birthday, to go see a place they had previously agreed to go to together. He also seems very indifferent to her sexual desires, and this is the crucial part I'll get to shortly. So far, very generic romantic movie stuff. The next step we the audience expect is for a knight in shiny armor to appear and save her from the dead relationship, but this is where the normal movie stuff ends: her savior just outright kidnaps and threatens her. He takes her to his house and doesn't allow her to leave. This dangerous criminal turns out to be an extremely dominating man. He grabs her violently, thrashes her around and menacingly states that she will cave in to him. He also turns out to be very rich. He lives in a gigantic castle. He takes her to shop for expensive clothes in luxurious stores, gives her refined dinners and procures any dish she desires. He is also tall, muscular, with a gruff beard and a generous amount of chest hair. Even when she tries to tease him and gain the upper hand, he turns the tables and subdues her. He is, by and large, the textbook definition of an alpha male. When she tries to make him feel jealous by dancing with another man in a nightclub, our hero responds by shooting the offender in the hands, and frowning at her until she apologizes. And when they finally make love, it is implied that it was everything she ever hoped for - he makes her feel like a Woman, dammit. This is the moment when something clicks in your mind. This movie takes a lot of influences from 50 Shades, but they didn't come from nowhere. Let's get a little dirty here. How many of us here have played, or heard about someone who plays, fetishes and fantasies with their SOs, and how many of those fantasies usually include popular, silly scenarios like the boyfriend/husband roleplaying as a police officer, catching the bandit played by the wife/girlfriend, and taking her into custody for "interrogation and full body search"? Then it hits you. This movie doesn't make logical sense because it doesn't have to. It's just two hours of a bland, female lead who's a stand in for the woman watching the movie, and living the fantastic, outlandish fantasy that I suppose many girls and women out there enjoy thinking about: being seduced and dominated by an otherwordly alpha male who then vigorously sates their sexual desires. This movie just uses a "girl gets kidnapped" scenario, 50 Shades simply went the more niche route with BDSM. Simple, nonsensical plots that serve purely to let the female viewers vicariously live a sexual fantasy.
I'm going to say it out loud: this is a porn movie. It's a porno made for women. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. This is nothing more than a pure, sexual guilty pleasure that obviously would never work in the real world. Nothing different from a "traditional" porn movie. The only real difference is the public it is aimed at. A normal porn movie for men is going to cater to men's fantasies: ludicrous setups, gorgeous women gladly doing everything the man demands, explicit images of intercourse. This porn movie (and 50 Shades as well) caters to fantasies that are more common for many women: a strong, dominating male figure that takes them on expensive trips to majestic locations and is completely focused on pleasuring the woman, not himself. The only thing this movie really does wrong at this point is being marketed as a normal, traditional movie when it so clearly is not. If you are a woman, you are probably going to enjoy living this fantasy, and there is no shame in that. It just makes me realize how grossly biased the movie industry is when it comes to porn: we are okay with all the millions of silly porno flicks and videos aimed at men, but when we see a silly sexual fetish movie aimed at women, the moviegoing public collectively pops their monocles in outrage.
I watched this movie with my wife and while we were trying to take it seriously, we both complained how bizarre the plot is. But once we understand what is actually at play here, we see it in a whole different light. This is a porn movie, and don't let the lack of explicit imagery fool you (there is lots of nudity however, so beware). If you are still not convinced and will still watch it thinking it is a "traditional" movie, don't bother, and save the disappointment. If, however, you understand and accept it for what it is, then go ahead at enjoy it.