And out come the restless housewives. Fifty Shades of Grey drops just in time for Valentine’s Day. Obviously, there is lots of pants dropping, but there is also a lot of plot and character development dropping. Only take your significant other to this if you need to take notes on how to use rope or nipple clamps in the bedroom.
Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) meets billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and is immediately smitten. Grey is also fascinated with Steele. Their courtship eventually gets physical, and Grey opens Steele’s eyes to his world of submission and sexual bondage. Steele reluctantly goes along, in hopes to figure out what caused Mr. Grey to tick and perhaps form a loving relationship out of the kinky one.
I have not read EL James’s book, so I only knew 50 Shades from the internet parodies and jabs. To the writer’s credit, the movie walks the line of seriousness very well and plays it VERY straight, giving each line a nice winking double entendre. Sexual lines always read funnier when the actor believes what they’re selling, and those lines give 50 Shades some pop. By far the best scene is the discussion of what is allowed/not allowed, which is shot beautifully like a rigid business meeting. The WHOLE movie is shot very beautifully, and the soundtrack is very catchy and enjoyable. 50 Shades of Grey has a very strong behind the scenes direction and support bringing their A game to what should have been a glorified porno.
Which makes it so frustrating that the movie has the plot and character development of a porno. The “characters” in this film get one note to play: shy mouse and depraved broken, control freak. Every scene after the lengthy courting sequence is played as the control freak losing control and the shy mouse attempting to assert herself. These scenes require freak outs at odd times for each person, meaning the scenes only make sense keeping the movie going, and don’t develop the characters at all. The only character development actually happens in the last 10 minutes of the film. This means the plot is entirely comprised of sex montages (very good) and deplorable filler which DRAGS the movie to a screeching halt. The most damning part of 50 Shades of Grey is each scene feels less like a whole film than a series of scenes loosely strung together.
Jamie Dornan is also a big reason 50 Shades doesn’t work. This movie needs Christian Grey to walk a fine line of powerful and broken, and Dornan just plays it like a brick wall. There is a coldness in Dornan’s performance that prevents him from clicking with Dakota Johnson, a giant problem since they share most of the movie together. Johnson has been trying to become a star for sometime now. I’ve always liked her (she has a small part in The Social Network, 21 Jump Street, and The 5 Year Engagement); she livens up many of the films she is in. Finally, Johnson gets to show why she inherited “it” from Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, her parents. Johnson’s expressive face sells the sexual attraction and elation in Anastasia’s courtship. Though the material is crap, Johnson elevates it to at least mediocre status and really makes the S&M and various erotica way hotter than they have a right to be. At the very end, Johnson gets to finally exhibit more range and nails the scene. At least 50 Shades of Grey will boast the breakout of Johnson, albeit through handcuffs and horse whips.
50 Shades of Grey wanders the middle ground of too bad for a feature film, to good for a cheap porno. Dakota Johnson will have name recognition at least because of it. Maybe she can take the behind-the-scenes crew for this film and shoot something way better: she’s more than earned the right to be the dominant.