The director attempts to earn the brand

Rating: 10/10 (30 March 2019)

As the heroes journey has no bearing here, it's the one 'who is now' which angers men for making their journey in betterment not factoring in. Dakota Johnson is so sensitive that her affect swallows the screen through performer empathy. The choice for internal not external is perfect for subjective literarism so the film gets lost inside her mind and nearly can't swim out. It's incredible how she sells every beat. She hangs onto the safeness of the role for dear life to remain endearing, and bravely crosses into eroticism which is very strange for pop cinema, as in they thought the popularity of the book was really about sexuality, not power, so it comes off extremely awkward. The man is less exceptional and I wonder how someone might have sold the character into an artform, where every scene you read nuance and interpretation creating a calculus puzzle between them. That her sexuality is the only thing she can offer is what disappoints men who accuse the female hero fantasy of sitting around, doing nothing, and getting some great reward for it. How the self-insert myths clash is very much 'war of the sexes.' Of course that is the surface reading and arguable. See the way she attempts to reverse engineer him through his kinks is anything but passive; and the way the story infuses sexuality being the person 'inside out' is a serious cinematic study that allows Dakota Johnson to larp as a believable subject for Bertolucci or Lyne. With the female director Sam Taylor it's admirable work inventing all of this for seeing. Often cultural phenomenons breach great truth and warrant a serious contrarian's look; in spite of its box office power hints on an artform there which she mines for through those awkward sex scenes which belong better on the page. This was awkward because it attempts the literary and puts in a serious effort to discover the cinema there; the director attempts to earn the brand, whereas the polished streamlined sequels by Foley went down too easily as commercial products. Meaning this shows a process to good or bad.