Critics slam film’s failure to address consent

THE PLOT

365 Days begins with a rooftop business meeting that quickly turns harrowing.

A mafia boss and his son are shot after refusing to participate in a sex trafficking operation involving underage girls. As the son loses consciousness, he thinks of the woman he spotted just minutes before on the beach below.

Fast-forward five years and we learn that the son, Massimo (Michele Morrone), survived and has taken over as head of the family business, but he’s more focused on tracking down the woman he saw on the beach that day.

Enter Laura (Anna-maria Sieklucka), a sales exec who coincidentally arrives in Sicily for vacation with her boring bald boyfriend at the same time Massimo is being driven past the airport.

A few obligatory scenes later, she ditches the boyfriend and is cornered by a pair of men while looking for her hotel. She wakes up in Massimo’s villa, completely unaware of where she is. She finally tracks down her captor after stumbling upon a gigantic portrait of her face on the wall.

THE BACKGROUND

365 Days, directed by Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes, has drawn comparisons to Fifty Shades of Grey, the best-selling erotic romance trilogy that became a popular film franchise. Blanka Lipinska, who wrote the 365 Dni book series and co-wrote the movie screenplay, has acknowledged similarities between her books and the box-office juggernaut, which faced its own fair share of controversy. But for all of the criticism levied at Fifty Shades, the first film deals with consent in a very pointed – albeit much-debated – way: The protagonist goes over a contract detailing the conditions of their dominant-submissive relationship.

In 365 Days, there is little to indicate that Massimo and Laura are embarking on a consensual sexual experience of any kind.

THE BACKLASH

When the two eventually have sex, it is – we are made to believe – consensual, and initiated by Laura in a scene so wild it has spurred its own hashtag. But many of the film’s critics have slammed the movie’s failure to address consent, with some noting that Laura’s eventual embrace of Massimo resembles Stockholm syndrome (feelings of trust in cases of kidnapping).

There has also been backlash to the film on Tiktok, where a “365 Days challenge” has prompted some users to pass bruises off as the result of rough sex and to express interest in being kidnapped by Morrone.

Mik Zazon, a body positivity activist with more than 710000 followers on the video-sharing app, created a Change.org petition urging Netflix to pull the film. As of this writing, it has more than 69000 signatures. There are other petitions on the site making similar requests. “Watching abusive behaviour be romanticised in pop culture makes it more real and accepted as romantic when it happens in real life,” Zazon wrote in an Instagram post.

Not surprisingly, many critics have stayed far away from

365 Days, but there are enough reviews to yield the movie a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – and comparisons to Tommy Wiseau’s widely panned 2003 film,

The Room. Variety dubbed it “thoroughly terrible, politically objectionable, occasionally hilarious”.

BUT… IT’S POPULAR?

Netflix does not publicly share viewership information for its titles, but 365 Days was for weeks in its top-10 list. The film, which saw a lucrative theatrical release in Poland earlier this year, has been a boon for Morrone, who told the Times he had been working as a gardener and close to giving up on his acting dreams when the producers of 365 Days came calling.

TMZ reports that the actor recently signed a six-figure modeling deal with Guess. Rolling Stone reported that several artists (including Morrone) featured on the film’s soundtrack landed on the magazine’s chart for breakthrough artists.

What does Netflix say? Netflix declined to comment for this story. But the Guardian recently quoted an unnamed spokesperson who noted that the film was merely licensed

It’s unclear whether the backlash will lead Netflix to make significant changes

and not produced by Netflix.

“We believe strongly in giving our members around the world more choice and control over their Netflix viewing experience,” the rep was quoted as saying.

It’s unclear whether the backlash will lead Netflix to make any significant changes to the way 365 Days is presented on the platform. During its first week on Netflix, the site’s description of the film read: “She feels suffocated in her new relationship. But will she breathe new passion into her life while held captive by another man?”

It is now more straightforward: “A woman falls victim to a dominant mafia boss, who imprisons her and gives her one year to fall in love with him.” |