Fifty Shades of Grey Review

Fifty Shades of Grey Review

Dakota Johnson

Note to self: if you watch Fifty Shades of Grey with a couple of your single male friends, you’ve hit rock bottom. That being said, I went to watch the erotic romance without any prior knowledge of the book’s story, so I wasn’t weighed down by any fan boy expectations. All I had to go by was that this was a highly erotic film with BDSM as its theme.

The movie begins with Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), a 21 year old college student interviewing a young, dapper business tycoon by the name of Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) on behalf of her sick friend Kate.  Then we have the most awkward of interviews, but a stray comment from Anastasia catches Christian’s attention, hinting at her insight and perceptiveness. This sets in motion a truly see-saw set of proceedings, with each party tugging and pulling at each other’s heart strings. The only thing that separates this from a Nicholas Sparks movie, though, is its erotic nature and a complicated man who chooses a dominant-submissive relationship over a conventional, run-of-the-mill one with traditional emotional attachment. 

Things get weird rather soon when Christian (oh, the irony of the name) gets Anastasia to sign a non-disclosure agreement, preventing her from confiding about their relationship to anyone. He soon pushes to have another contract signed, one where Anastasia is essentially a white, female slave and Christian is a dominant master, able to impose his will on her as he sees fit, barring when she uses certain “safe words.” Even after ignoring the potential enforceability of such a contract in a court of law, the proceeding felt ridiculous. It sounded eerily similar to waiving your right to sue at a paintball range or a go-cart race, should you end up getting hurt. 

Suffice to say, Anastasia plays coy with the man, and the 2^nd act of the movie is about the two and their budding romance and whether she will eventually sign that contract. This period of the movie took a very heavy toll, as it felt stretched beyond necessary means. Anastasia seems to pull Christian out of his comfort zone, trying to embroil him in a “normal” relationship, while he tries to lure her into his lifestyle. The tiresome nature of the act was made worse by the dialogue, which didn’t provide anything original to it, and it only managed to irk the viewer. 

The only shining light of this act was the romance and the sex, which there was plenty of. You will see plenty of the things that a PG-13 movie wouldn’t allow, and we must applaud the actors for being so willing to expose themselves as such, and on a frequent basis. However, it must be said that even in this department, there were some mistakes. 

While no one can doubt the merit of the movie’s soundtrack, I felt that the music playing during the sex scenes was very strange. The acts being depicted weren’t entirely romantic, and yet, the music wanted us to feel as if they were. Then there were some really questionable choices of shots in the sex scenes, when it came to angles. You know that something is not done right in a sex scene when the audience laughs at what is supposed to be a sensual encounter. In addition, some scenes involving the intimate acts felt out of place, especially when done one after the other with no accompanying dialogue. They could convey the depth and intensity of the characters’ feelings, but as there was no “sex montage”, per se, certain scenes felt redundant. 

That being said, I feel that the actors did their best with what was given to them, and that wasn’t much. The beginning of the movie does manage to hook you in a certain way with a lighthearted sense of humor and through language that forewarns the events to follow (puns, really), but the 2^nd act was a bit too long, no pun intended there, however. 

I went into the movie expecting a BDSM fest and I was rather disappointed, because there was plenty of teasing on this part and the final scene only sets up the stage for a sequel. It reminded me of the ending to Mockingkjay Part 1, because it really wasn’t an ending. And on the matter of the more provocative elements of the movie, I wasn’t too surprised by what I saw or taken aback. Perhaps I’ve seen too much pornography, or perhaps the idea is to save things for the next installment. A sequel is guaranteed given the strong box office performance domestically and internationally, but I doubt that most would go to a sequel that had a weak predecessor. I know I won’t.