Will Everyone just calm down?

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2015)

I'm going to admit that I didn't have very high expectations when it came to "Fifty Shades of Grey". I went in figuring it would be quite the experience to see what I estimated would be a ridiculous erotic drama with a lot of sex, made for its audience of 30-something lonely housewives. Actually, and you can tell this is me telling the truth because I'm admitting this, the movie is better than you think it would be. I'd even recommend it if you're the audience it's targeting. The film stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia "Anna" Steele, a naive woman who becomes infatuated with the world's most eligible billionaire, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). There's drama aplenty when she discovers that Mr. Grey has a very peculiar sexual appetite.
I really thought that this picture was going to suck and that if anything, I'd get a kick out of it by chuckling to myself (quietly, to avoid being noticed by the adoring fans surrounding me on opening night) but I really was pleasantly surprised. At least on a technical level, this is a very competently made film with an eye for good cinematography, some decent erotic sequences and a story that leans more towards pleasurable than agonizing. What I didn't foresee was that whoever was in charge of putting this project together really knew what they were doing. It's as if they read the novel and instinctively knew that there would be some significant backlash towards the film simply for existing and they asked themselves "what can we do to work around some of the weaknesses in this material?" Firstly, I felt like director Sam Taylor-Johnson knew that to make the story (which is very melodramatic, and not in a good way towards the end) bearable, some humor had to be injected in it. I can't really give any examples off-hand, but the movie felt self aware. It knew that people were going to make fun of certain passages of dialog, so dodges a bullet by poking fun at itself. Not too much, just the right amount.
Even if you find that you have trouble swallowing the story and you can't stand the numerous sex scenes throughout, there won't be any denying that the cinematography present is quite good. There are three scenes that really stuck out for me. The first is a "business meeting" between Anna and Mr. Grey in which they are sitting in an office as the sun is setting. The diminishing sunlight peering through the windows and reflecting off of the glass table looked absolutely gorgeous. I loved seeing the warm glow reflect off of the two characters as they discussed their relationship in cold, calculated ways. The numerous sequences where Mr. Grey shows his would-be submissive some of the perks of living the high life were also very pleasing to the eye and there are a couple of shots where we see Jamie Dornan framed through objects that I thought showed a real eye for composition. Looking quickly at the cinematographer Seamus McGarvey's body of work, it comes to my attention that he's done a number of films. If I take one thing away from "Fifty Shades of Grey", it's that when I take a look at some of his works (which includes 2014's "Godzilla", "Atonement" and "Anna Karenina") I'll pay special attention to his shots.
The faults, I pin mostly on the original source material. It's pretty clear that this movie is based on an elaborate fantasy put onto paper that just happened to hit the right note with certain audiences. Like in so many of these quasy-abusive romance-driven stories we've gotten since "Twilight", the main character is plain, kind of dim and can easily be substituted for the reader. For this reason I didn't find myself to be particularly drawn into the romance in the plot. While I found Mr. Grey to be interesting because of his mysterious past and exotic tastes, the pure virginal Anna is so wishy-washy about what she wants that I came to strongly dislike her. At over two hours, this movie is also way too long. If I can learn everything I need to know about a world as wacky as the one in "Existenz" in 97 minutes, there's no reason for "50 Shades" to eat up this much of your time. On a personal note, I was also disappointed to see that there really aren't that many big, memorable scenes in the film aside from the erotic ones (which, surprisingly, didn't really do it that much for me, despite the ample nudity). People have been protesting this film because of "sexual violence" and "deviant behavior" but come on... really? This is not that scandalous when you consider that the internet has been around for how long now? This movie was not made for me. I saw hardly anything that even looked like a glimpse of anything resembling a giant monster, a time-traveler or a crazed serial killer. It doesn't really appeal to my more refined tastes of solid dramas and soul-crushing honesty with romance thrown in either. You already know if "50 Shades of Grey" is going to be for you based solely on what you know about the plot, even if it isn't much. The picture already gathered far more attention than it deserves because it doesn't strike me as particularly good or bad. For what it is though, it is well made and I do think that the legions of ladies who gobbled up the novel (or want to give hints that they might want to try some bondage themselves) will not feel like they wasted their time with it. In a way, I'm disappointed that viewing "Fifty Shades of Grey" on opening night was neither a catastrophe or a wildly erotic romp that ended up with me grabbing more phone numbers than I would know what to do with. Oh well. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 12 2015)