Film: 'Fifty Shades of Grey' (2015)

TITLE: Fifty Shades Of Grey
YEAR: 2015
STUDIO: Universal
DIRECTOR: Sam Taylor-Wood
SCREENWRITER: Kelly Marcel (based on the novel by E.L. James)


On the same day I watched this film, my parents came home from a little holiday and had bought me some cheese, the package of which promised a hint of blue.  Anyone going into this film hoping for some cheese will be disappointed but there is at least a hint of blue in it.


Based on the vastly popular bestseller by E.L. James and adapted by the writer of the vastly superior Saving Mr Banks (2013), perhaps the film-makers should have learned a lesson from that film and followed Disney's lead in how they chose to adapt the source material despite the author's protestations.  If the film-makers had indeed tried to adjust the story due to questionable material (hands-up right now, this author has only merely scantly glanced at the source material), they have come up with something that seems both compromised and at the same time nothing that members of the kink community should be protesting about.  Compromised because they may well have tried to "improve" on the source text, ethically speaking, but also having to be saddled with the two leads giving monotonous readings for the duration.


The leads in question being Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) - a virginal English Literature student with an annoying name, and 27-year-old-but-looks-12 billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), who is clearly an alien or a robot, based on the evidence of Dornan's performance.  They are introduced to each other when Steele comes to his office for an interview for the student magazine and she makes a very contrived trip onto the floor.  For some reason, she is soon taken with him and for some reason, he starts demonstrating stalker tendencies.  Early warning signs include when he informs her that he won't touch her without her written consent but pretty much a minute later changes his mind in a lift and says "Fuck the paperwork!" before cornering her for a snog.  At another point Ana phones him while drunk on a night out and he comes over to rescue her from a friend coming onto her (and no, not in that way).  Ana swoons and regains consciousness in a bedroom and in a new set of clothes with an 'Alice in Wonderland' plot device at her bedside - a bottle of something that says "Drink me" and something the says "Eat me".  So, like any idiot, she does.  Apparently Christian redressed her and slept at her side but nothing further - "Necrophilia is not my thing", he claims.  Dude, that's not the word for what it would have been - this is the first of two instances where the film-makers tread around that particular subject like it was an eggshell.  The other is when it turns out Grey was seduced at the age of 15 by his own "Mrs. Robinson".  Mrs. Robinson wasn't a paedophile though, although Ana's refers to the seductress as a "child abuser" for some reason.


Grey also gifts Ana with old books, a new computer, and a car, and soon she is taken to his place.  He claims he doesn't do romance but he does show what he does do - he has a "play room" (yeah, he's into that sort of thing).  Ana reveals that she's a virgin and he decides that's something that needs rectifying.  Wanker.  What follows is the first of a few sex scenes that reminds us that this is a film for "adults" (through the eyes of mums that were technically too old for Twilight).  It's vaguely surprising to see a mainstream Hollywood film have this kind of frank nudity on display but it's not particularly onanistic stuff.  If anything, Steve McQueen's Shame (2011) could serve as a palette cleanser and the quasi-religious flogging scene (accompanied by Church choir courtesy of Danny Elfman's score) serves as a reminder to go back and re-watch Ken Russell's The Devils (1971).  Even the seemingly stop-motion animated subliminal "flash" (oh, I see what they did there) of a close-up of Dornan's crotch as he unzips just brings to mind the dancing penis from Bruno (2009).


One can detect the Twilight roots with regards to the Grey character - he's a protective guy who at one point saves our heroine from being knocked down and likes to play the piano.  So it seems Grey's way of doing things is to set up a contract if Ana is to be his submissive (hardly an appealing selling point for the lifestyle) and she proposes a business meeting so they can negotiate (zzzzzzz).  At this meeting, she declares that there is to be no anal fisting (you'd think at this point, the film-makers were sniggering behind the camera like the audience would be while E.L. James gives them the evils).  Perhaps unfortunately, this wasn't directed by Paul Verhoeven nor written by Joe Eszterhas, although the nearest to Eszerthasan it gets is when Grey declares "I don't make love.  I fuck.  Hard."  Still, Showgirls (1995) it ain't.


Ana is reluctant to sign the contract and seems to prefer a "normal" relationship.  She asks Grey at one point why he's trying to change her, and he tells her it's the other way round.  There's no real evidence of this except when he's persuaded to stay in bed with her the whole night and actually smiles (sorta) in a newspaper photo taken of the two of them together.  We don't actually really care about these characters although by the end of the film, perhaps through its sheer length, we at least feel like we've known them and have been in their company and any "nostalgia" felt when seeing them in subsequent sequels would be like seeing Bella and Edward in a new Twilight film even if you weren't a fan of the previous ones.
 
To be fair, even if the kink lifestyle isn't given a fair hearing in this film, it is possible that the film (I can't comment on the novel) can be seen as a cautionary tale on how not to live it.  Anyone curious about the lifestyle could be either attracted to it even more or turned away from it.  And unlike the Twilight movies, this adaptation refrains from using a voice-over by the protagonist, thus creating an objective view of the proceedings and letting the audience decide for themselves.  Rather than a "love story", it's more of an "anti-love story" where the two leads don't end up together.  What would have made it more interesting would be if the film-makers provided a commentary on a seemingly "vanilla" (i.e. "normal") equivalent of a dominant/submissive relationship, such as that in which the woman is regarded and treated as a "princess".  Here, they could even have added an anti-monarchy agenda.


As with Jupiter Ascending (2014), it's a bit of a shame this film presumably wasn't edited by the makers of the film's trailer - the one that showcased Beyoncé's theme song "Haunted", and succeeded in making the film look like a fragrance advert.