Spank me like you do.

Rating: 3/10 (20 February 2020)

This film was undoubtedly one of the biggest box office hits of the decade, but it was largely due to the already dizzying success of the original material, the erotic novels by E. L. James. I have no doubt that the audience that went to see this film did it out of curiosity or because they had previously read the books and liked it. So, the film already had a well defined target audience. But as I have not read the books (nor do I intend to) I will speak only of the film.
Overall, I found the plot very weak. Anastasia Steele is a shy, sexually inexperienced young woman who immediately feels a strong attraction to Christian Gray, a young millionaire with an almost latent aggressiveness. From there, the two have a relationship full of fetishes of authority and pain, where the romance insists on arising and leaving both confused and bewildered, especially Gray, who seems to carry a lot of childhood traumas and like to discount all that on the body. of their young sex slaves. This is the plot of the film, and I am aware that the book is the same, but the truth is that it makes no sense, if we take into account the normal and expected reactions between a man and a woman ...
Observe carefully: first, it is almost impossible to find, today, a young adult totally inexperienced in bed and in sex. It can happen, of course, but it is rare. The first meeting between them is also something that could only happen in a book: AnastÃ¡sia, who should interview Gray, is so tense and shy that she doesn't even know what she is doing! And he, a very busy man, gives ten minutes to a young woman who has not rigorously prepared herself for the interview she wanted to do! He is an intense, even brutal man, who could have any woman, but he is enchanted by the tastiest girl on the planet. Even so, he does not intend a normal courtship, but a sexual and possession relationship, bureaucratic, well defined on paper, forgetting that quickly when the desire and passion became uncontrollable. And everything happens in a fraction of ... days? One day she is in his office, not knowing what to ask him and, a short time later, she is relaxed talking to his mother as if she were already part of the family. None of this makes sense, but this is just a bit of the absurdities of the whole story, common to the film and books.
Dakota Johnson is perfect for her character, as she is a totally uninteresting woman, who could go unnoticed by the eyes of the most ardent of males. For his part, Jamie Dornan is too kind and friendly to be Christian Gray. His character should harmoniously combine the beauty and virility of a young adult with a more mature and somber personality than normal at his age and some brutality and strength of character. I even dare to think that the ideal actor for Gray should be (or appear to be) slightly older than Dornan. The rest of the cast is OK but has no room to do anything really good. The dialogues are hideous, and if they originated from the book then I did well not to read it.
It goes without saying, I believe, that this film is totally inappropriate for children and teenagers, given the heavy erotic material and the language used. The film's nudity is something that the fans considered residual, but I would consider it too much if it did not take into account the original material in which the film. The film has good production values, starting with good photography, good scene props (it would highlight the famous red room and all its paraphernalia), satisfactory editing work and, above all, a good soundtrack, which is in the heard and has good songs (I would highlight "Earned it" and "Love me Like You Do").
In short: when starting with bad source material, the film was doomed from the start. The only thing that made E. L. James's book good for the cinema was the number of copies sold and the absolute guarantee that the film would sell equally.