Written by Kelly Marcel (based on the novel by E.L. James)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
USA, 2015
Let’s dispense with this straight away…
Fifty Shades of Grey is not horrible.
In fact, the first hour isn’t bad at all. A dry, offbeat charm complements a delicate story structure that would be at home in any generic romance film. The second hour, however, is an epic endurance test. This material is woefully thin, and because the filmmakers have scaled back the smut factor, there’s not enough eye candy to keep things interesting, either. By the end, you’ll be fifty shades of bored.
Here’s a question…
At a time when any fetish or peccadillo can be satisfied with an ill-advised Google search, what function does a prick-tease like Fifty Shades of Grey serve? This is not meant as a smug provocation, but a legitimate, sociological question. It’s a question that director Sam Taylor-Johnson needed to answer before she deposited her quarter into this money-making machine. It’s admirable that she gives the material such an earnest treatment, but she hedges her bets somewhere between romance and titillation, which makes for a surprisingly listless viewing experience.
Everyone knows that E.L. James’ gazillion-dollar literary franchise originated as Twilight fan fiction. Sadly, Taylor-Johnson and her screenwriter Kelly Marcel have taken a few too many cues from that tepid template rather than slathering their movie in the sex and debauchery of James’ novels. This is basically the story of a poor peasant girl, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), meeting her prince charming, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The fact her prince is a dominator who requires his submissive subjects to sign a consent contract before they play is merely a curious wrinkle in a very old story. Anastasia and Christian meet, they flirt, they get it on, and then they spend an hour trying to figure out what their relationship means. That’s pretty much the entire plot, and, yes, it’s just as sparse as it sounds.
The first huge problem with Fifty Shades is that it feels like the first movie in a franchise. Meaning, the producers and filmmakers are busy setting up future cash grabs instead of telling a proper standalone story. There’s about 30 minutes of actual story here. The rest, including pointless trips to see both Anastasia and Christian’s families, is little more than padding to reach a 2-hour running time. Why not shoot for a 90-minute running time, instead? Or maybe 80 minutes? A shorter running time might have disguised the complete lack of dramatic tension and threadbare plot. We’re also treated to lots of people standing around and talking, complete with their entrance and exit from the room, just in case you were confused where they came from, apparently. This is vintage Twilight time stretching, which worked so well that it inadvertently simulated what a vampire’s timeless existence feels like. A story like Fifty Shades, however, demands a more urgent pace. After all, what is sex if not the need for immediate gratification?
The other major problem, and an unexpected one at that, is how tame Fifty Shades of Grey is. There are plenty of mainstream Hollywood movies with far bolder sexual content, let alone movies specifically dedicated to sexual perversion. This would be like the heroine from Nymphomaniac deciding she only liked missionary style. Yes, we get plenty of close-up bums and boobies, along with enough bumping and grinding to make “Cinemax after Dark” blush, but the nookie is clearly sanitized for our protection. Whether it was avoiding a more restrictive rating from the MPAA, or pre-empting any possible protests, the filmmakers obviously made a conscious decision to go with vanilla instead of chocolate.
On the bright side, 50 Shades is beautifully photographed. Veteran cinematographer Seamus McGarvey knows a good shadow when he sees one, as well as how to best accentuate these young, beautiful bodies. And Seattle has never looked better, with its exploding skyline and scenic beauty; it plays a major character in the film.
The actors do a reasonably good job with what they have to work with. Dakota Johnson conveys a genuine sense of awkward innocence, and scores major points for not getting a callous on her much-bitten bottom lip. Not surprisingly, Jamie Dornan struggles to decipher Grey. He’s a caricature more than a proper character, constructed from fantasy and yearning rather than flashcards and research. The movie suffers mightily, too, by not revealing his deep, dark secrets. With this much buildup, nothing short of a gangbang with the Seattle Seahawks will explain his tortured soul.
50 Shades of Grey has the kernel of an interesting idea at its core—a woman’s love tearing down a wounded man’s barriers to intimacy—but it’s buried in too much junk to find it. You catch the occasional glimpse of the possibilities, like a hilarious “business meeting” with Anastasia and Grey discussing the finer details of Anastasia’s service contract (apparently, anal fisting won’t be part of her regimen). Still, the filmmakers took a timid approach to material that was literally begging to be naughty. Now it’s up to audiences to decide if 50 Shades of Grey is a worthwhile lay.