Berlinale 2015: Fifty Shades of Grey

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Cast: Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Ehle
Length: 125 minutes
Country: USA

Fifty Shades of Grey is pure trash. However, viewed in the right state of mind, it’s not totally unenjoyable either. In a way, it’s a perfect date movie. If your date laughs at the film, they’re worth sticking around. If your date is actually moved, dump that moron. Admittedly it is better than the book (which I managed to get halfway through before throwing it across the room) but aside from its camp humour – intentional and otherwise – isn’t worth any of the hype.

Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) has to fill in for her friend to interview Mr Grey (Jamie Dornan), who at twenty seven is one of the worlds youngest billionaires. He works at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Seattle, and his staff seems to be comprised entirely of tall blonde women. Anastasia falls through the door to his office – a cheap meet-cute in an exceedingly cheap movie- and things get worse from there…

What would be considered stalkerish behaviour in real life – Grey has this habit of just appearing wherever Anastasia is – is seen as brooding and mysterious. It’s not. It’s fucking creepy, and not how relationships are supposed to work. But hey, what did I expect from an adaptation of a novel based on fan fiction of Twilight? If you change the medium or the setting of the same piece of crap several times, it will still magically remain the same piece of crap. As she starts to develop a relationship with this damaged individual, she finds out he has a different way of doing things. As he says, “I don’t make love, I fuck. I fuck hard.” What a stand-up guy.

It feels like cheaply made soft-porn, catering entirely for the sad and unimaginative market.

Now let’s talk about the sex scenes, because let’s be honest, that’s the only reason you even want to see this movie. Well, they are neither erotic or pornographic. There is nothing explicit beyond Dakota Johnson’s breasts, and the BDSM scenes are edited so what we see is only implied. Being a studio picture, I didn’t expect much, but this tame approach was rather disappointing. Additionally they are scored to entirely the wrong music, implying eroticism whilst there is none there. It feels like cheaply made soft-porn, catering entirely for the sad and unimaginative market.

It completely fails to explore either sexuality or attraction, and whilst Dakota Johnson is quite charming as Anastasia Steele, there is little to no chemistry between the two leads. Christian Grey is supposed to be all deep and mysterious, but his words ring hollow throughout. At one point he randomly confesses his mom was a crack addict, and instead of making me care I burst out laughing instead.

If the producers of this film wanted to make something other than lots of money – i.e a work of art – simply lukewarmly adapting the book wasn’t going to do. It needed a perverse spirit, a director like Peter Greenaway (whose recent Eisenstein In Gaunajauto is a perfect example of how to write and direct a sex scene), Lars Von Trier or Paul Verhoeven to subvert its knotty themes. The safe choice of second time director Sam Taylor-Johnson results in a safe bet, and whilst sure to do well at the box office, remains inoffensive and dull. I admit its one of those films that no amount of negative reviews will affect its viewership, so when you do go, just don’t expect anything halfway decent. Possibly worth watching as a piece of pop cultural phenomena, but completely lacking in artistic merit. You’d learn more about sex from watching Daytime TV.