Year: 2015
Genre: Erotica
Not having read any of the original novels, I came to this film without any prior knowledge whasoever of the plot. All I knew was that they involved a certain 'Mr Grey', and that 'Mr Grey' was a man who's between the sheets activities had women the world over talking about him, and men the world over keen to know his modus operandi. Fast forward to Valentines Day 2015, and I became one of the many blokes dragged to to the cinema kicking and screaming to watch Focus Features big screen adaption of '50 Shades of Grey'. I was expecting to be bored to death by a mediocre snooze fest marketed at women, that was selling tickets based purely on the hype surrounding the book and little or nothing to do with artistic merit. So what of my opinion now I have seen it?
The plot is simple and relatively easy to pick up if you've never read the book. Anastasia Steele (an adequate performance from Dakota Johnson) is sucked into the whips, sticks and chains world of Christian Grey. A man who on the surface is almost identical to Richard Gere's Edward Lewis character in 1990's 'Pretty Woman'. A billionaire by the age of 27, Grey is played by big screen newcomer Jamie Dornan, who plays a character that feels uncannily the same in his sexual tastes as the one he played in BBC2's serial killer show 'The Fall'. He is an actor clearly chosen for his eye candy factor when the females in the audience were being considered. Anastasia has to sign a contract to become Grey's sexually submissive partner, and the rest of the film focuses on the emotional struggle between her attraction towards him, and his reluctance to open up emotionally to her.
Make no mistake, this film is by no means as pornographic as the media hype surrounding the novels would have led you believe. In total (and someone somewhere has counted) there are around eleven minutes in total of sex scenes, and none of them are in anyway graphic for the contemporary cinemagoer. Was this a let down? Not really, no. I think that hardcore pornographic content wouldn't be appropriate for the big screen, and there are other avenues you can go down should you wish to pursue it. Female director Sam Taylor-Johnson clearly made sure that during the more saucier moments, the balance between male and female nudity was both equal, and at a level that the females in the audience would find unoffensive.
Once you know that the sex scenes are played down, is it as painstakingly boring as you expect it to be without them? Well to be honest, no it isn't. That's not to say it's good, by any stretch of the imagination, it's just easier to sit through than you expect it to be. The chemistry between the two leads works very well, which is obviously intergral to the film's success. Supporting actors and set pieces do a decent enough job to bring the film above the level of the generic 'cash in on the success of the book' movie. There's just one thing that drags the film right down to gutter level, and it is very, very hard to escape from.
The script is an utterly diabolical, and that is no exaggeration. Star Wars fans will be familiar with Lucas's inability to write a good script that translates easily to celluloid. Think of how cringeworthy some of the dialogue was in the prequels, and '50 Shades' quite honestly takes it to a whole new level. There were some scenes where I honestly thought the two leads looked embarrased at the things they were given to say. Cara told me that this was also a problem with the original novel, and I have read several reviews online that have said author E.L James insisted her original text was used in the screenplay. Sadly, this lets the film down on a monumental scale, and it's a real shame, because otherwise, it's not half as bad as it could have been.
A surprisingly ok 2 stars, which would have been 2.5 were it not for the script.
The plot is simple and relatively easy to pick up if you've never read the book. Anastasia Steele (an adequate performance from Dakota Johnson) is sucked into the whips, sticks and chains world of Christian Grey. A man who on the surface is almost identical to Richard Gere's Edward Lewis character in 1990's 'Pretty Woman'. A billionaire by the age of 27, Grey is played by big screen newcomer Jamie Dornan, who plays a character that feels uncannily the same in his sexual tastes as the one he played in BBC2's serial killer show 'The Fall'. He is an actor clearly chosen for his eye candy factor when the females in the audience were being considered. Anastasia has to sign a contract to become Grey's sexually submissive partner, and the rest of the film focuses on the emotional struggle between her attraction towards him, and his reluctance to open up emotionally to her.
Make no mistake, this film is by no means as pornographic as the media hype surrounding the novels would have led you believe. In total (and someone somewhere has counted) there are around eleven minutes in total of sex scenes, and none of them are in anyway graphic for the contemporary cinemagoer. Was this a let down? Not really, no. I think that hardcore pornographic content wouldn't be appropriate for the big screen, and there are other avenues you can go down should you wish to pursue it. Female director Sam Taylor-Johnson clearly made sure that during the more saucier moments, the balance between male and female nudity was both equal, and at a level that the females in the audience would find unoffensive.
Once you know that the sex scenes are played down, is it as painstakingly boring as you expect it to be without them? Well to be honest, no it isn't. That's not to say it's good, by any stretch of the imagination, it's just easier to sit through than you expect it to be. The chemistry between the two leads works very well, which is obviously intergral to the film's success. Supporting actors and set pieces do a decent enough job to bring the film above the level of the generic 'cash in on the success of the book' movie. There's just one thing that drags the film right down to gutter level, and it is very, very hard to escape from.
The script is an utterly diabolical, and that is no exaggeration. Star Wars fans will be familiar with Lucas's inability to write a good script that translates easily to celluloid. Think of how cringeworthy some of the dialogue was in the prequels, and '50 Shades' quite honestly takes it to a whole new level. There were some scenes where I honestly thought the two leads looked embarrased at the things they were given to say. Cara told me that this was also a problem with the original novel, and I have read several reviews online that have said author E.L James insisted her original text was used in the screenplay. Sadly, this lets the film down on a monumental scale, and it's a real shame, because otherwise, it's not half as bad as it could have been.
A surprisingly ok 2 stars, which would have been 2.5 were it not for the script.
