Movie Review - Kinky (2019)

It seemed likely that the success of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) might spawn copycats or its success might inspire more filmmakers to explore the subject of BDSM. Leading up to that 2015 blockbuster, there have been several, independent and smaller films that have dealt with BDSM. We've had films like Secretary (2002), The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) and The Duke of Burgundy (2015). The majority of those films though have mainly involved white people. BDSM has never been portrayed on the big screen with black people. This film addresses that gap. Here, we have African-Americans exploring and engaging in BDSM. An argument could be made that the reason those kinds of depictions have been avoided is due to the obvious comparisons or connections to images of slavery, which is a particularly touchy subject, but BDSM still stands as a valid, erotic practice for all people, including African-Americans.

Dawn Richard is a R&B singer who used to be in a girl group called Danity Kane. She's done some acting before, but this is her first leading role in a feature film. She stars as Joyce Carmichael, an orthopedic surgeon at a hospital in Los Angeles. She has a great group of girlfriends. All of whom seem like they make good enough money. They're all middle to upper middle class. She's a beautiful woman who doesn't look like a doctor who's that overworked or if she is, she certainly makes sure to look like she just stepped out of a music video for Danity Kane. She's like a supermodel who would have no problem dating, but she's been single for a while, over a year. She's in therapy though where she can talk about her dating issues.

Robert Ri'chard (Chocolate City and One on One) co-stars as Darrin Bernard, an executive, if not the veritable Vice President of a financial firm that has global reach and that is very successful. It almost doesn't matter what he does. We simply are supposed to accept that he's extremely rich. He's very, very wealthy. He is perhaps not as rich as the titular character of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, but he's supposed to be the equivalent here. The difference though is that unlike Christian Grey, Darrin isn't the one interested in BDSM. He hasn't even heard of it. He comes across as a bit shy and naive socially, but yet he's more confident in business.

Exploring a BDSM relationship between Joyce and Darrin seems like what this film is going to do. Sadly, exploring BDSM or even much of the relationship between these two isn't what this film does to any effective degree. It's not to say that Fifty Shades of Grey was the best written film ever, but this film makes Fifty Shades of Grey seem like it was written by Paddy Chayefsky. It starts with how Joyce and Darrin meet.

Gary Dourdan (Being Mary Jane and CSI) plays Anthony Bernard, the older brother to Darrin. He introduces Darrin to Joyce as she's sitting with her girlfriends at a restaurant. There's no prompt for this. He just does it. There's no clue as to why. He just seems to be a ladies man, a swinging bachelor who just randomly approaches women. He approaches them alone and then waves his brother over. He seems to be doing so for the express purpose of trying to set up his brother, but there's no follow-up. After this introduction, Anthony doesn't do anything else in the plot of this film.

Nevertheless, Joyce begins to have erotic dreams about Darrin, dreams that involve BDSM. Later, she admits never having done BSDM before, but she has thought about it but just needed to find the right partner to explore it. After she hooks up with Darrin on his boat, or his yacht, she decides that he's the right partner to explore BDSM. Yet, there's no exploration of it visually and barely verbally. The first sex scene of the film and pretty much every sex scene thereafter are no where near as provocative or titillating as the sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey.

After the first, sex scene between Joyce and Darrin on his boat, Darrin asks if she always has "sex like that" and he described the sex as being "different." Yet, the sex scene doesn't show us anything that looks or feels different than two people having regular sex, meaning Missionary position and some oral sex, but I don't get why that would be so different or be so shocking to Darrin. Later, Joyce describes wanting to do violent things to Darrin, but she describes it to her therapist. It's good to see a black person talking to a therapist in a normalized fashion, but her therapy sessions almost feel like an excuse for writer-director Jean Claude Lamarre who also plays her therapist. The excuse is Lamarre not having to depict or go further in those BDSM scenes beyond seeing the two of them kiss.

Indeed, when Joyce starts introducing BDSM items to Darrin and gets him to engage with them, Lamarre never goes beyond some almost chaste moments. She presents a blindfold and things to bind her hands. She even presents a whip, but the scenes quickly fade to black without ever depicting the BDSM in action. BDSM can seem intense, violent and even brutal, but Lamarre never goes beyond the moment where it just seems like the two of them are playing dress-up. The whole thing comes off as neutered and tame, and when it comes to BDSM, if you're going to be neutered and tame, then what you're doing is rather pointless.

It also proves that the filmmaker didn't have the courage of his convictions. He wants this film to be all about black women being proud of their sexuality and embracing their sexuality, even the darker sides of it. Yet, it's just lip service, literally. The text of the film mentions it, but only superficially. The film otherwise never wants to depict it in any meaningful way. It's not that I wanted the film to go pornographic because Fifty Shades of Grey never goes pornographic, but compared to that 2015 hit, the woman here is a nun.

The supporting cast is practically wasted. Dourdan is one example. Darrin Dewitt Henson (Soul Food) plays a potential love interest for Joyce. Yet, his character is virtually wasted. He's not a factor at all, which is a waste of Henson's talent. Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day) plays Dana, the sister to Joyce. She gets a couple of scenes to shine, but the film should have given her more to develop her character. She's too big a star to just get basically two scenes to shine.

Rated R for strong sexual content and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 30 mins.

Available on DVD and VOD.