Review of Swept Away (2002) by Greg F — 12 Jul 2007

I liked this movie better when it was called Male and Female and it was directed by Cecil B. DeMille in 1919: same anti-capitalist yet seemingly pro-misogynist plot of a wealthy woman stranded on an island with her male servant and they end up "falling in love" and reverting to the "natural" order with the man in charge and the woman shutting up and doing as she's told.

Except the DeMille film at least had Gloria Swanson, not Madonna with the painfully obvious age lines they Photoshop out of all her publicity photos acting her Rich Bitch role at her most flat and one-dimensional, and the previous film's Decent Working Man was a dapper butler rather than a stereotypically slovenly, sleazy, and greazy-looking Italian.

Where Male and Female had a fantasy sequence about a Babylonian king and a Christian slave, Swept Away has the Italian guy fantasizing about Madonna in a ball gown singing "Come On A My House" (which was probably the most entertaining scene in the movie).

It also uses one of my favorite songs at the very beginning, but considering how craptastic this movie ends up, I can't help resenting that fact. In addition to the bad acting on Madonna's part and general flat characterization--the players seem to represent ideologies, not actual living people--there's a scene where the Italian guy ends up basically raping Madonna in the sand, after which she becomes more submissively feminine and "likeable" and ends up falling in love with him.

GREAT MESSAGE, KIDS. The sentimentalized romantic love story that comes afterward was thus totally unbelievable to me. I didn't care about this obnoxious couple and I didn't care whether they ended up together.