“I’m fifty shades of fucked up,” Christain Grey proclaims in reflexive frustration to a persistent Anastasia, as a multitude of audience members chortle in response. Why reflexive, you ask? Because that statement verifies the chortles and acts as a mostly complete summation of the entire film.
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 50 Shades of Grey, based on E. L. James’ novel, fails to transcend the poor source material and titillate while exploring the topic of BDSM. The movie opens to stunning wide-sweeping shots of Seattle set to Annie Lennox’s “I Put A Spell On You,” which instantly sets the tone and mood of the story familiar to everyone who engages in American pop culture. Anastasia Steele’s (Dakota Johnson) roommate has the flu, so she sends Ana to fill in for her in an interview with billionaire business tycoon Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). And then he takes a liking to her, asserting control over her life and later showing her his “play room.”
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 50 Shades of Grey, based on E. L. James’ novel, fails to transcend the poor source material and titillate while exploring the topic of BDSM. The movie opens to stunning wide-sweeping shots of Seattle set to Annie Lennox’s “I Put A Spell On You,” which instantly sets the tone and mood of the story familiar to everyone who engages in American pop culture. Anastasia Steele’s (Dakota Johnson) roommate has the flu, so she sends Ana to fill in for her in an interview with billionaire business tycoon Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). And then he takes a liking to her, asserting control over her life and later showing her his “play room.”
While Taylor-Johnson succeeds in visually capturing the world of 50 Shades as one would imagine it and Johnson and Dornan are good in their roles, almost everything else fails. The biggest issue to me: the flawed story. It’s weird: there were superfluous scenes, yet there were too few scenes. The dialogue and story tools were schlocky and trite. There was no motivation (at least on Ana’s part), and there were no stakes, or at least I certainly didn’t feel any. There’s nothing in the film that pulls you along with the story, nothing that keeps you in your seat other than making it to the end just so you can say you did it. Even then, the sequel set-up ending was so stupid, it was laughable.
The next glaring issue: the sex. There was not enough of it! At least the whole 20 minutes of sex certainly didn’t feel like enough for the book that is supposedly the steamiest thing that happened to 2012. And you would think, that since there is so little sex happening, that there would be enough room for interesting subplots and storylines to take place. Well, you would be wrong. Moreover, the sex scenes were so tepid! Maybe I’m ruined from having watched Kink (2013), but this is freakin’ BDSM people! It should make the viewer at least a little uncomfortable! It should be a little rough! They just weren’t bold, in content or shooting style/choices. The movie failed to deliver the literal single thing it should’ve delivered on.
I felt nothing. Zero of the things. I wasn’t turned on. I wasn’t swept up in Ana’s supposed fantasy. I tried, but the movie didn’t paint the fantasy effectively or much at all. I didn’t really feel Grey’s power, passion, sexiness, control, or dominance. I didn’t feel Ana’s ambivalence, curiosity, infatuation, submissiveness, or intrigue. This wasn’t the actors’ faults (they did pretty well with what they were given, which wasn’t much, in terms of dialogue or development of content for the potentially interesting characters); rather, it was the fault of the filmmakers, editors, and writers. This was really such a missed opportunity.
Rating: C-/D
The next glaring issue: the sex. There was not enough of it! At least the whole 20 minutes of sex certainly didn’t feel like enough for the book that is supposedly the steamiest thing that happened to 2012. And you would think, that since there is so little sex happening, that there would be enough room for interesting subplots and storylines to take place. Well, you would be wrong. Moreover, the sex scenes were so tepid! Maybe I’m ruined from having watched Kink (2013), but this is freakin’ BDSM people! It should make the viewer at least a little uncomfortable! It should be a little rough! They just weren’t bold, in content or shooting style/choices. The movie failed to deliver the literal single thing it should’ve delivered on.
I felt nothing. Zero of the things. I wasn’t turned on. I wasn’t swept up in Ana’s supposed fantasy. I tried, but the movie didn’t paint the fantasy effectively or much at all. I didn’t really feel Grey’s power, passion, sexiness, control, or dominance. I didn’t feel Ana’s ambivalence, curiosity, infatuation, submissiveness, or intrigue. This wasn’t the actors’ faults (they did pretty well with what they were given, which wasn’t much, in terms of dialogue or development of content for the potentially interesting characters); rather, it was the fault of the filmmakers, editors, and writers. This was really such a missed opportunity.
Rating: C-/D
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