MOVIE REVIEWS : A Laughably Implausible ‘Proposal’

Every once in a great while a movie comes along that is so unintentionally silly, so thoroughly implausible, all you can do is bow your head in bemused astonishment. “Indecent Proposal” is such a film.

The first joint venture of producer Sherry Lansing and director Adrian Lyne since “Fatal Attraction,” “Indecent Proposal” (countywide) aims at a similar kind of potboiler intensity, a parallel peek into the trashy lives of the rich and fatuous.

Not afraid to ask the tough questions, “Proposal” wonders what would happen if an idyllic but suddenly impoverished young couple (Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson) ran into an unabashed billionaire (Robert Redford) who offered $1 million for a very close encounter with the Mrs. “The night would come and go,” the billionaire says suavely, “but the money would last a lifetime.” Not at today’s prices.

One obvious problem “Proposal” has is that another film has already asked that same question in a very different way. Andrew Bergman’s “Honeymoon in Vegas” involved Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker and James Caan in the identical situation, but treated it as absurd farce, not one of the ponderous moral dilemmas of the age.

But even if “Honeymoon in Vegas” had never existed, this particular film would be in trouble. Though some of its moments are intentionally humorous (especially those involving Oliver Platt as the couple’s opportunistic lawyer), mostly “Indecent Proposal” wants you to feel deeply for the plight of this morally stricken young couple, skewered by an offer they just can’t seem to refuse, when all you want to do is giggle at how ridiculous it all is.

Sweethearts since high school, Diana and David (yes, they call each other D) tell most of their story in dueling flashbacks that begin in the present with the two of them alone and sad. She is sitting on an L.A. bus (how’s that for tragic?) talking about setting free the one you love, while he is moping around the pier at Paradise Cove, mumbling that “losing Diana was like losing part of me. I thought we were invincible.” Not quite.

David is a passionate architect for a local firm who liked to point out the finer points of local car washes when he could take time out from “putting everything he knows” into the plans for their future dream house. Then the recession hits and David fears he could lose it all.

Even Diana’s work as a real estate agent can’t tide them over, and, in danger of losing their dream house in what appears to be an imaginary part of Santa Monica, the two Ds make a gutsy, if not particularly logical, decision. They take all their cash and head out for Las Vegas, determined to win enough to keep the foreclosers from their door.

Unfortunately, the Ds have picked the same day to visit Vegas as womanizing billionaire John Gage, a high roller who tosses around $10,000 chips like they were styrofoam coasters. Naturally, the fetching Diana catches his eye, and when he offers to buy her an outfit she’s been wishing for, she frostily replies, “The dress is for sale, I’m not.” Well, intuition never was Diana’s strong point.

Though getting the picky Redford to play Gage must have seemed like a coup at the time, his performance, a variation of his bland “The Great Gatsby” outing, is not what “Indecent Proposal” (rated R for sexuality and language) needs. Redford’s Gage is so busy being exquisitely sensitive and polite he neglects to project any energy, and without it the crucial morning-after part of the movie gradually collapses under the weight of its own self-importance.

Victims of a group delusion, Lansing, Lyne and screenwriter Amy Holden Jones (who is not above purloining one of Gage’s key speeches from “Citizen Kane”) have overestimated the power of the “my money for your wife” situation and underthought what the lasting consequences of that wager might be.

Without creditable motivation or convincing acting (Harrelson and Moore look alternately dreamy, cranky and confused), the more desperately the filmmakers want to involve you in the plight of the Ds the more preposterous everything becomes. It may not be polite to laugh at other people’s troubles, but “Indecent Proposal” doesn’t leave you much choice.

‘Indecent Proposal’ Robert Redford: John Gage Demi Moore: Diana Murphy Woody Harrelson: David Murphy Seymour Cassell: Mr. Shackleford Oliver Platt: Jeremy

A Sherry Lansing production, released by Paramount. Director Adrian Lyne. Producer Sherry Lansing. Executive producers Tom Schulman, Alex Gartner. Screenplay by Amy Holden Jones, based on the novel by Jack Engelhard. Cinematographer Howard Atherton. Editor Joe Hutshing. Costumes Bobbie Read, Bernie Pollack, Beatrix Aruna Pasztor. Music John Barry. Production design Mel Bourne. Art director Gae Buckley. Set decorator Etta Leff. Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (sexuality and language).