Surprised me by being much better than its reputation

Rating: 8/10 (16 February 2015)

I went to see this expecting the worst. Having read comments mainly from the BDSM community and literary commentators I presumed this would be a horrid experience.
It was not anything of the sort. This movie actually works quite well. Fifty Shades of Grey is not deserving of its bad reputation. People would do well to completely ignore the haters - and the swooning fans - and make up their own mind.
The story starts as the Twilight saga: the impossible young man gets infatuated with a bumbling virgin. And then the similarities end; these two stories go their separate ways.
The characters...
Anastasia is no wuss. She takes initiative, she communicates, she negotiates and she marks her borders. For being a complete amateur to romantic love, sex and BDSM she holds her own really well. The one thing I do not like about the character is that she(!) does not respect his(!!) limits. Then I remind myself: she is the amateur. She does not understand that a dominant needs their own limits. What she does is realistic. She is credibly portrayed by Dakota Johnson.
As for Christian, I pretty much expected him to be ignoring safe-words left and right. He does not. Despite some stalker tendencies, he actually respects all of Anastasia's limits when she states them. He actively seeks consent. He checks her state of mind before proceeding. He is not quite as credible though. More on that in a moment.
The visuals...
Flawless. There's nothing to complain about here. I especially liked the glider scene.
The story...
It works. I don't know what people are complaining about here. Christian and Anastasia's relationship proceeds through the steps smoothly and without being too convoluted. The one thing that makes story less credible is that the scriptwriter / author tries too hard to make Christian dysfunctional and incapable of romance, when in fact he is quite good at it! His supposed troubled background is conveyed only through spoken exposition and it does not match how we see him act. I cannot help but to think "Lamp shading!" when Anastasia calls him out on it.
What gives the story some zest is when Christian makes mistakes, like walking out on Anastasia after her first spanking and - more crucially - when he allows her to force him into a pain session. Supposedly he had been in her position for six years, so he should have known what a train wreck that would inevitably turn out (I suppose this is where the BDSM community gets their knickers in a twist).
But as a plot element to create tension and drama, this works! Not to mention it is realistic; had everything gone without a hitch we would be looking at a truly impossible story, not to mention a very boring one. Add to that the film tells us very clearly "this was wrong, he just messed up". You cannot - unless you are emphatically damaged - assume this is correct BDSM and with that the critique that real life practitioners have been delivering falls.
In summary: I think Fifty Shades of Grey does the job, defying its poor reputation and delivering a(n almost) credible, visually pleasing story. It surprised me and thawed me from my initially frosty expectations. The hatred it is getting is definitely not warranted, even if the fawning isn't either.
I for one will be going to the sequels.