Fifty Shades of Grey was kinda funny and interesting. Fifty Shades Darker removed the decent screenwriting and opted for well shot smut. Fifty Shades Freed isn’t kinda funny or pornographic. It’s just….lame. Thanks for at least letting us have fun with the title EL James and James Foley. Now I’m Fifty Shades Freed…of watching these crappy films? of the handcuffs your films have been binding me with? of watching Jamie Dornan try to act? I could go on and on…
Well, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) finally did it! She bagged the unbaggable, Mr. Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). After their lavish wedding and honeymoon, the two settle into married life. Ana goes to work at her publishing company, and Christian hires bodyguards (Brant Daugherty, Robinne Lee) to follow her around while he works. This might seem overly intrusive, but Ana’s ex-boss Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) is pissed at Ana’s role in his firing and wants to get his revenge. Plus something about not having kids or whatever.
For all its kinky sexcapades, the Fifty Shades Freed story really is a more conservative woman’s fantasy: living the sweet life with a wild man that you tamed into wanting a family, which makes this third installment much more cynical an exercise, since the story has been pitched as erotic fiction. Porn porn has now been replaced by wealth porn in Freed. The tracking shots in Europe, or driving Audis, or hiking in Aspen, or at dinner with your rich friends, this movie is a conservative wet dream incarnate. The kinky sex is sill there, but it very much takes a back seat in the story. Which is too bad, because there is a treasure trove of comedy the screenplay could take. For example, after Ana and Christian have sex on a table with food items, just SHOW someone eating the food, or using the table. Occasionally the screenplay will do so (like a killer handcuff joke), but the movie is more interested in showing how domesticated the couple have become, taking much needed levity out of the screenplay. Christian’s backstory is filled clearly with abuse of some kind, but the movie only alludes to his past and we NEVER see his previous lover who taught him to like BDSM, rendering Grey toothless and uninteresting. In addition, the Jack Hyde subplot is REALLY crammed into the story and feels super out of place, and includes some of the worst examples of tonal inconsistency I have ever seen in a movie (why during a scary scene where you’re being followed is jovial music playing, just undercutting any tension that might be there), and culminating in another one line write off of the subplot that leaves one character in peril that never gets mentioned again. For all Fifty Shades Freed’s attempts to be edgy, the movie undercuts the momentum by smoothing out all the rough edges.
And that is the biggest failing of Fifty Shades Freed. Upwards of 1 character are interesting in this movie. Oh, not one full character mind you, just bits and pieces: Eloise Mumford gives Ana’s best friend Kate a warmth and energy the movie badly needs, which the screenplay promptly undercuts with poor writing and a swift end to her arc. Jack Hyde’s character makes no sense: he’s pissed at Christian’s luck, but he graduated with honors from an Ivy League school? He’s a self-made man! He can get a job anywhere, judging by his stunning technological prowess that comes out of nowhere. Christian’s friends and family are big nothings as well. So that just leaves Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. Johnson has charisma for days, and she at least elevates Anastasia above the terrible screenplay by giving her agency in the relationship; Johnson can ably go between mousy in the bedroom but strong outside of it and make it believable, while constantly acting circles around Dornan. I’m convinced Dornan got hired for the amazing abs that he has. The dude is frankly embarrassing in these movies, even more so here with one of the worst displays of drunkenness put to film. So when only Ana and her friend are interesting, the movie only works when Ana is alone, which is never since Christian follows her everywhere. The writing undercuts any stakes as well, meaning we’re just watching stuff happen, and other stuff happen, and then it’s over. And we feel nothing.
After writing this review, I now realize what is being Fifty Shades Freed. It’s Dakota Johnson. As horrible as the writing may be, Johnson always found ways to keep me interested in her as much with her clothes on as with them off. She’s got It, and I look forward to see where her career takes her, and hope for a Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson like ascendance to stardom.