Right off the bat: I did not watch this film out of any interest in the subject matter. I’m the sort of person who asks someone out and then screams his safe-word if they expect me to also decide on a time and place. BDSM is about as appealing to me as french kissing a bovine rectal cavity. Appropriately, so is this film.
The Partially Educated Review
Yes, I went there
In 50 Words or Less: Not the worst film ever made. Now that's out of the way, it's still rubbish. It's also setting back gender equality at least 20 years and has the sex appeal of me in a mankini. Given how many people went to see this, I'm going to start wearing said mankini.
In Detail: I’m fairly sure I’ve said this on here before. There isn’t a single film that I would flat out refuse to ever watch. Of course there are films which I consider a higher priority, but if the opportunity presented itself to see every film ever made, I’d take it, regardless of how much dross I’d have to sit through. Fifty Shades Of Grey was a tricky one though. It falls into that category of films that I can’t help but have an opinion on before watching; what I call…
That’s the main reason why I’ve waited a while before giving it a chance. Letting all the vitriol ease off a bit before I try and establish my opinion without pre-judgment. Also, there was no way I was going to the cinema to watch this, particularly given the fact that some cinema’s felt the need to put plastic covers over their seats for ease of cleaning.
Now I’ve watched it though and I don’t so much lament the 2 hours I lost watching it as I do cry for the people who lost 2 years of their lives making it and have this to show as the end result. I genuinely feel as though a lot of them don’t deserve it. In areas such as lighting, the way the film is shot and the soundtrack, people have done some really good work here.
All of that work is for a film which isn’t just bad because of it’s stunted acting and appalling script. This is an inherently scuzzy piece of work that doesn’t ooze any sense of temptation into you, instead leaving you to question whether the human race really does deserve the air we breathe.
For those of you that don’t know the plot, good on you. Wish I could be right there with you. If you insist though, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) interviews mega-rich businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). “How’d he get rich?” I wondered. “Look! Boobs!” said the film. Through a series of scenes in which Grey establishes himself as a slimy, reptilian bag of inferiority, Steele quite alarmingly becomes seduced by him, becoming a very special kind of partner to Grey.
The film’s gross gender imbalances are a huge problem. In fact, if anyone knows a voodoo priest, please provide me with contact details. By the time the sequels come out, I genuinely think we may need to resurrect Emmeline Pankhurst. It’s made worse though when the film tries to bring some morals into it. Instead of empowerment, the whole thing starts to deflate and you get the impression they want us to resent Steele for finally employing the use of her brain.
Director Sam Taylor-Johnson hasn’t done a great job here either, but with all the stories of interference from the author (that’s her above if you’re wondering), it seems like that was going to be an impossible job. Wisely, she has decided to step away from the sequels.
This is a prime example of a film being a non-starter. No one went to see this expecting quality and even the most illiterate person I know (it's not you, I promise) appears able to recognise that the book is a literary shocker. I can't comment. I've never read it. I intend to keep things that way. Unfortunately, this weird sense of slightly perverse curiosity overcame people and meant that this film was funded with enough money to guarantee that those aforementioned sequels are happening.
And I'll probably watch those as well.
TWO out of 10
