'Adam' gets NC-17 tag
Producer peeved over rating ruling
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Thomas also produced Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers," which went out in February with an NC-17 rating through Fox Searchlight. That erotically charged coming-of-age drama has grossed $2.2 million to date, making it the U.S. market's fifth-highest earner ever released under that rating.
Directed by Scottish helmer David McKenzie and premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival, "Young Adam" stars McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan and Emily Mortimer in a 1950s-set relationships drama about an amoral drifter who gets caught up in a couple's passionless marriage.
The defining factor of sex in the characters' lives and the depiction of the sex act as physical release devoid of romance made the pic one of the more talked-about entries at Cannes.
Thomas flew to Los Angeles to appeal the ratings board's decision, originally announced in the fall, but the bid was voted down eight to two. Paradoxically, the board objected less to moments of full-frontal nudity than to a particularly intense fully-clothed lovemaking scene.
"I don't understand why they focused on this scene," Thomas told Daily Variety. "The film is not titillating and it's not being marketed to sell sex. The scene is an important one; it's beautifully handled so I don't want to cut it and I'm very glad Sony will go ahead with the original version."
Sony Classics has set an April 16 release date in the U.S.
"We really think the ratings board has got to get with the program and get with the future," SPC co-president Tom Bernard said. "What's needed is a hard R rating to distinguish the quality films like 'Young Adam' and 'The Dreamers' from 'Debbie Does Dallas' or any other porn movie."
"Basically, what you're doing is giving signals to the audience and the MPAA is giving a negative signal right now," Bernard added. "The way it stands, how can an audience distinguish what's art from what's hardcore smut? Audiences avoid the picture because of this rating."
Media observers have widely commented that the violence in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," among other films, should warrant the NC-17 tag. But historically, that rating has tended to be used more by the Motion Picture Assn. of America to restrict entry to films with explicit sexual content.
"This just underlines the strange anomalous situation between violence and sex," Thomas said. "I'm proud to deal with grown-up themes and filmmakers that have a different code. But the rules are very confusing and I don't want to be ghettoized in this way."
"The NC-17 rating still has an X-certificate bad smell about it; that's why we're all reluctant to accept it," he continued. "It has a negative imprimatur and is misinterpreted by audiences, video stores, newspapers, advertisers and exhibitors."
Top NC-17 grossers in the domestic market to date are "Showgirls" ($20 million), "Henry & June" ($12 million), "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" ($8 million) and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" ($4.1 million).
