Stream It Or Skip It: ‘365 Days: This Day’ on Netflix, a Hotly Awaited Sequel That Mistakes Sex for Drudgery

365 Days: This Day might be the most MONUMENTAL sequel in Netflix history. When 365 Days – informally, “the Polish 50 Shades of Grey” – became a surprise hit two years ago, the streamer quickly ordered up two more of the f—ing things, ensuring that the second movie would be the Empire Strikes Back of eroto-dramatic quasi-pornographic Polish-Italian rough-sex flicks. To recap the first chapter of the saga: mild-mannered smoking-hot Polish gal Laura (Anna-Maria Sieklucka) was an object of obsession of Italian mafia boss Don Massimo (Michele Morrone), so he kidnapped her, giving her 365 days to fall in love with him, and if it didn’t happen, he’d set her free. The Stockholm syndrome ended up being not too bad since Massimo had a pretty big hog and knew how to use it, and voila, they became a happy couple. We pick up with them on the very important next day of the rest of their lives…

365 DAYS: THIS DAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: There’s Laura – and yes, she’s wearing a wedding dress. And there’s Massimo, all tuxed up. The nuptials haven’t happened yet and they’re already violating two traditions: One, Massimo sees her in her dress before the ceremony. And two, he goes right up that dress to consummate the marriage mere moments before they tie the knot. Outside! Where others might see them! E.g., her BFF Olga (Magdalena Lamparska), who stumbles upon this hawt scene with a handful of sexy wedding-day panties for Laura to choose from, but really, who needs those things? They just get in the way. It happens – the wedding, I need to clarify, what with all the intercourse happening around here – and the newlyweds pile into his white-wedding Lambo and drive off so they can do it again and again and again, every time to a different terrible, terrible, terrible song on the soundtrack, some of which feature lyrics that make Hinder sound like The Bard.

They get up the next morning and, against all odds, walk without a gait or a limp or anything. “How do I look like?” Laura asks with precisely those very words and Massimo replies, “Like the first time, baby,” and she says, “It will be a perfect honeymoon, husband.” And then there’s another godawful f—ing song and a slo-mo golf outing during which Laura pole-dances with the flagstick and also sits right behind the golf hole with her legs spread so Massimo can putt the golf ball into the golf hole that’s right between her legs. (If my wording seems awkward, just wait’ll you see this sequence.) THE PERFECT HONEYMOON. And is it me, or is this movie being stupid on purpose?

Further honeymoon escapades consist of skinny dipping, riding horses, hot tubbing and slipping it in at every given opportunity, to more turgid humpsongs than any individual, sane or otherwise, can possibly handle. Sometimes, they do it rough and sometimes they do it a little rougher and once in a while even rougher still, with cuffs and stuff. She wears lingerie and vampy makeup and his pecs cast their own individual shadows. There’s a scene where he heads south and takes a really big LICK and all you can think about is RAW ANIMAL LUST, and then your eyes rupture. Laura gets railed so often in this movie she starts to look like the landscape in Once Upon a Time in the West. Oh, and sometimes Olga gets some, too, in case the movie didn’t have enough sex scenes, and if I’m not mistaken she does it to humpsongs that are even würse.

Wait, does this movie have a plot? At the 26-minute mark, there’s a hint of one as Laura rolls over one morning and pinches a nip and they French the plaque off each other’s teeth and Massimo casually mentions that he has a brother she doesn’t know about. Why is this important? Not gonna say, but hold onto your hats, buckaroos. Daily life is a struggle. He’s too busy doing his mafia bullshit and she’s bored with the mafia-wife life, which apparently requires her to dress like the villainess in an animated Disney musical. Massimo tends to issue commands to her instead of asking nicely, and that’s just not going well, so Laura pushes back a little. He shows her his love on Xmas by gifting her an entire clothing business, and she thanks him by whispering in his ear and then licking it – and then goes the rest of the movie without working at the clothing business for a single second. One day, she bumps into the gardener and says, “You have nice cap,” because he’s wearing a ball cap, see. His name is Nacho (Simone Susinna), as in “Nacho Bellgrande.” She opens up to Nacho about how her only job is “being a wife – how pathetic is that?” If she cried on his shoulder, the tears would bead up and slough right off because he’s rrrrrrripped. Looks like, in the vernacular of the script, there might be trouble on paradise.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: 365 Days: This Day is even more 50 Shades of Grey-meets-The Room than the first 365 Days – although I sometimes think it’s trying a little too hard to be The Room.

Performance Worth Watching: [THIS SPACE LEFT BLANK FOR ADMINISTRATIVE USE]

Memorable Dialogue: “A guy cheating on a woman like you must be an idiot (long awkward pause) without balls.” – Nacho

Sex and Skin: I think we’ve covered this particular component of the film, although it’s worth mentioning that you won’t see even a millimeter of male member.

Our Take: To directly steal a line of dialogue from Laura, “Get me out from here.” I have my suspicions that the ESL comedy in this movie might be intentional – and the horrendous editing, the maladroit sex scenes, the puckered performances and those god damn maddening songs, which emerge like aural bedbugs with every transitional scene (when they bothered too shoot them) and montage (they definitely bothered to shoot a bunch of these, though).

You could encase the entire plot inside a hollowed-out jelly bean, yet this movie is 111 minutes long; it’s so tumescent with filler, it rivals the menu at the Springfield Elementary cafeteria (say it along with me: “There’s not much meat in these gym mats”). At about the midway point, the movie separates the Couple of the Decade and mostly gives up on the sex scenes, which is like feeding us bread and butter by dropping the whole platter into the compost bucket. That leaves us to trudge through the swamp of the story, which I’d call soap operatic if it wasn’t an insult to soap operas. It includes misunderstandings, skullduggery and wIlD tWiStS, and ultimately, I think we’re supposed to be really rooting hard for Laura and Massimo to overcome their relationship dysfunction for the sake of true unadulterated love. That’s not likely, although someone’s definitely rooting hard around here.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Difficult to tell if 365 Days: This Day is worse during the sex scenes or during the non-sex scenes. I call it a wash. (Oh, and standby for movie no. 3, The Next 365 Days, coming and coming and coming and coming and coming soon.)

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.