"Fifty Shades of Grey": Beautiful People Having Believable Sex

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2015)

"Fifty Shades of Grey" has been getting a lot of bad reviews, but in truth, it exceeded my expectations. I did read all of the books, just barely, as the third one was a little hard for me to get through. Against books alone, the movie is amazing. The film manages to do something that the books did not: make the characters likable.
Throughout reading the novels, I often wanted to punch Ana in the face. Her "Inner Goddess" and constant blushing, to the point that I thought she might have suffered from some kind of medical problem, grated on my nerves. Not to mention, she didn't own a computer or have email. Seriously, you cannot go to college without email. Not believable in this century. The movie removes that problem by saying that Ana's computer is down. Instead of being a girl from the wrong century, she becomes a broke college student who can't afford new electronics.
Throughout watching the movie, I wanted to hug Ana constantly. Dakota Johnson is officially my new celebrity crush. It was hard for me to understand the novel's portrayal of everyone adoring Ana, as she seemed to be awkward in an unlikeable fashion. In the movie, Dakota Johnson gave me comprehension of how someone could be super awkward but also super f**king adorable. Not only is she drop dead gorgeous with an absolutely amazing body, she smiled and giggled so charmingly, I understood why everyone loved her. I respected her power play during the business meeting, where she just left Christian there (payback for him ditching her after graduation). And her angry and final No! at the end of the movie was far more powerful than Ana's reluctant exit of the book. My favorite scene of Miss Johnson's had to be when she was drunk, I could not stop laughing at how endearing she was.
Jamie Dornan. Hot. Great abs and really nice butt. He is the perfect choice for Christian. I know that fans got really mad when Charlie Hunnam pulled out, but as much as I like Charlie, I think Jamie's boyish personality and looks make him more suitable for the part. Charlie is sexy, that is for sure, but Jamie is kind of sexy/nerdy, making him a more believable 27 year old billionaire. I also liked that Jamie played Christian akin to a commitment-phobe rather than a totally stunted man. Yeah, he is controlling, but Jamie played it up like Christian is f'd up, but also just like your average 20 something year old guy who doesn't want to stay the night at his girlfriend's place. His portrayal was more believable and easier for me to connect to him as a character. I thoroughly enjoyed how he played the sex scenes. I actually saw him clearly as a dominant; he didn't overact the control aspect, he just seemed like the type of guy who would do whatever he wanted in bed and would drive his partner crazy in the process.
There are definitely some faults in the film. Some of the writing is corny, but you kind of have to expect that in a romantic film. In terms of plot, if you already read the book, you know that it is a very basic relationship story, nothing too climactic happens; I didn't mind that because I knew it before going in, but my boyfriend was extremely bored with the film and its two-hour length. I know people complained that the sex scenes were too tame, but I don't actually think that is the case. It was definitely like soft-core erotica, but we still got to see a lot of nudity, and it was tasteful. If I just wanted to see two people going at it uncoordinated and fully nude, I could just watch porn at home.
All and all, the movie was entertaining and even better the second time I watched it because I knew when the corny lines were coming, so it wasn't as comically bad. I can't wait to catch the sequels and see how Johnson's giggly charisma and Dornan's boyish charm add to the rest of Ana and Christian's story.