Sam Taylor-Johnson has taken EL James’s hardcore bonkbuster and given it the meet-cute treatment, writes Jordan Hoffman in this first take on the movie.
Next time your college roommate asks for a simple favour, heed the consequences! Young Anastasia Steele fills in for a flu-ridden journalism major who’s landed a quick interview with America’s hottest business tycoon. Ana heads up to the cold, steel Grey House tower in Seattle wearing a crumpled skirt and floral blouse and array of nervous tics. But the clean, powerful, high thread-count Christian Grey sees something he wants in those bit lower lips and self-effacing chuckles. And Christian Grey is a man who gets what he wants. In time, he will envelop Anastasia Steele into his, shall we say, unconventional lifestyle of (consensual, always consensual!) BDSM, and she will need to make some very adult choices.
Grey is adequately played by Jamie Dornan, but he’s essentially a cipher for his thousand dollar watches, crisp ties and a fleet of Audis – his lesser mode of transport when he doesn’t feel like using the helicopter with the word “GREY” emblazoned on the side. But the real find in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s better-than-it-has-to-be adaptation of the risibly written and ludicrously popular softcore novel is Dakota Johnson. Reminiscent of only her mother Melanie Griffith’s best characteristics, Johnson’s Ana squeezes believability out of one of the more silly romantic entanglements in recent popular culture. It’s all there in her face, which Taylor-Johnson frames in close-up. She’s fully aware this scenario is ridiculous, but can’t seem to turn away from its lunacy. And who knows, maybe she actually kinda likes Christian Grey.
He’s not an ogre. He just gets a bit funny when it comes to intimacy. He doesn’t “do” relationships. He won’t sleep in the same bed as a woman. But once she has agreed (on paper) to his advances, he takes a key from his pocket and shows you his playroom.
Praise is due for how the notorious “Red Room of Pain” is introduced. It isn’t that campy, and yet we are supposed to laugh. After the reams of commentary EL James’ books have inspired (and recent faith-based protests) this big screen adaptation still manages to be about people, and even a little bit sweet. We see the room through Ana’s eyes and react alongside with her: we snigger, but don’t quite reject it.
The sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey are numerous, lengthy and frank, but they aren’t smutty. Only occasionally does it dip into Red Shoe Diaries-territory. By and large, these key scenes really are there to advance the plot, and only the most buttoned-up prude will be scandalised. The ropes, cuffs and collars are all standard issue kink. For real life, perhaps, they are extreme, but for the movies, it’s nothing too weird. If the Red Room full was of enormous vats of raspberry jelly, maybe that could maybe engender some shock. But when things go a bit too far, Ana asserts herself and counters that maybe a man who yearns to hurt women (consensually, always consensually!) ought, perhaps, to look within.
0 Comments