Every now and again, I make it a point to check out what’s trending on the Netflix charts. (You know, to see what the “people” are watching.) Sitting confidently atop the Malaysian charts this weekend wasn’t Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, or the final season of 13 Reasons Why. It wasn’t even The King: Eternal Monarch. No, this week, it appears that the vast majority of us (myself included) have been watching the Polish humpfest that is 365 Days.
Which isn’t the least bit surprising. God knows we love our filth. Growing up in a environment so sexually repressed that even armpits are censored on television (don’t ask!), let alone a kiss on the lips, we’ll seek out smut wherever we can find it. (Hell, these days, we can even stream it legally. Hoorah!) Add to that the sheer horniness that comes with being quarantined for almost 90 days and what you have is the perfect storm of circumstances for this movie to thrive.
This recent Netflix acquisition is unreservedly awful (we’re talking Oh, Ramona! bad). 365 Days, Poland’s answer to 50 Shades of Grey, is the worst kind of softcore pornography. Unsexy. Uninspiring, And about as arousing as Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.”
The story (let’s just call it that) is this. The purposefully vacant Laura is a frustrated hotel executive (or something, who cares?) surrounded by sexist colleagues and a loser boyfriend. Massimo – so Italian he should be called spaghetti, so manly he’ll set your panties on fire – is a gangster who’s living with the scars of having seen his father shot and killed before his eyes.
One fateful day, Massimo spots Laura at an airport, stalks her, drugs her, and kidnaps her to his sprawling mafia mansion. He had a vision of her, you see, as he lay dying from the same bullet that went through his father’s heart, and has spent the better part of five years seeking her out. Now that he’s found her, he’s going to hold her captive until she falls in love with him. And if she doesn’t after 365 days, he’ll let her go.
Creepy? Absolutely. But unlike Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Laura doesn’t really seem to mind. Especially after Massimo promises not to “touch” her without her consent. (Talk about being woke.) In fact, the only real objection Laura makes is when Massimo orders her to get ready to fly with him to Rome and she replies: “I’m not a bag of potatoes that you can transfer without my permission.” (Which, let me tell you, sent me down a rabbit hole of research into the Poles and their relationship with potatoes.)
After that, the movie (let’s just call it that) plays out like some squirrelly pubescent daydream. Massimo wins Laura over by taking her on shopping sprees (there are three!) and to swanky parties. He gains her sympathy by talking about how broken he is. But the thing that really does it, the moment that finally seals the deal, that gets her willing and without a stitch, is when Massimo saves her life – after first causing her to fall off the edge of his boat in the first place. (What a hero!)
In the description on it’s title page, Netflix describes 365 Days as being “romantic”. Which isn’t quite the word I’d use. Exploitative. Dross. Half-baked. Jejune. Repetitive (surely there’s only so many times you can watch a sexy Italian man receive a blowjob?). Occasionally rapey. Most definitely. But romantic? Hardly ever.
Romance implies sentimentality. It’s that feeling of excitement that stems from the mystery of love. Let’s be clear, 365 Days is a movie that was made specifically for the inevitable Pornhub edit.
Does the movie glamourise Stockholm syndrome? Maybe. But only if you’re dumb enough to take whatever this is seriously. Is it sexually regressive and politically incorrect? Sure. But if 365 Days is the thing that somehow informs your view of love and sex, then you’ve got far bigger issues to contend with.
You know exactly what kind of movie this is.
This is the kind of movie where the actors are forced to speak their lines in English because it’ll work better for international markets. Even when one of those lines is: “I’m gonna fuck you so hard they’ll hear you scream in Warsaw.” This is the kind of movie where it feels like there was someone off camera constantly screaming at the two leads to be sultrier. To narrow their eyes, purse their lips, and speak in whispers. This is the kind of movie where a woman in captivity spends a lot of time lounging sexily in very slight dresses.
This is the kind of movie that’s begging for a sequel. (And given that it’s based on the first of a trilogy of novels by Polish author Blanka Lipinska, you can bet that there’s more on the way.)
Should you watch it? You don’t care what I think. You’re probably going to watch it anyway. Hell, you probably already have.
365 Days
Netflix
114 minutes
Directors: Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes
Writers: Tomasz Klimala, Barbara Bialowas, Tomasz Mandes, and Blanka Lipinska
Cast: Anna Maria Sieklucka, Michele Morrone, Bronislaw Wroclawski, Otar Saralidze, Magdalena Lamparska, Natasza Urbanska, and Mateusz
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