It's well-known that Fifty Shades of Grey started life as Twilight fan fiction. But E.L. James' novels manages to one-up those books; at least Stephanie Meyer couches her fantasies in fantasy format. James' direct, real world approach puts the misogyny and abusiveness front-and-center. Worse, Fifty Shades (and especially its film version) isn't satisfied being a kinky turn-on but wants to be an earnest romance. That idea's more depraved than any of Christian Grey's masochistic rituals.English student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) interviews brooding billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The two strike an instant connection through Thomas Hardy novels and mutual sulkiness. Eventually, Christian reveals his terms for a long-term relationship: bondage, flogging, and kinky sex any time, anywhere. Ana gives in and the two start screwing each other. Ana struggles to see the human being beneath Christian's icy exterior.
It's hard to review Fifty Shades as a movie. Director Sam Johnson-Taylor competently renders James' scribbling, except for the robotic dialog (which I'd blame on the micromanaging author) and some reddish bizarre mood lighting when Christian and Ana examine their contract. No, the problem lies with the execrable source material. That James' book became a bestseller rather than languishing alongside Hot Stud Trouble and other $5 romance novels is an eternal mystery.
Viewers are subjected to a cavalcade of imbecilic smuttiness. Christian's the kind of lover who only exists in cheap paperbacks. He's a tycoon who never works, sheds his shirt without prompting, rescues Ana from the horror of drinking with friends. Best of all, he's a philanthropist with a Freudian backstory that supposedly explain his psychosis. Ana succumbs to the allure of whips and surprise sodomy, but draws the line at spanking. We don't learn anything of her background except a distant mom (Jennifer Ehle) who vanishes within minutes of appearing.
In this sense, Fifty Shades isn't worse than your average Harlequin novel. What's disturbing isn't the content but James' approach. Where Edward Cullen watched Bella Swann sleep, Christian breaks into Ana's apartment and rapes her. An experience presented, in both book and film, as profoundly erotic and incurably romantic. Coupled with swoon-worthy scenes of Christian flying Ana in a private plane and taking her on expensive dates, it's clear we're expected to see not an abusive relationship but a troubled romance.
Dakota Johnson gives the most insufferably bland, emotionless performance imaginable. She's naïve and stumbling from start to finish, only changing expressions when Christian buries an ice cube in her navel. Jamie Dornan isn't much better, mistaking wooden for brooding, disrobing with Taylor Lautner-esque reflexivity. Decent actors Jennifer Ehle, Marcia Gay Harden and Callum Keith Rennie skulk in anonymous bit parts.
Ultimately, this charming tale of a manipulative sociopath and his meek supplicant doesn't seem to have pleased anyone. The book's fans found it too tame, BDSM practitioners found it offensive, most others found it incompetent and dull. Which didn't stop Fifty Shades from grossing $500 million. Don't know about you, but I can't wait for the sequels.
