Christian Virtues

Rating: 9/10 (13 February 2015)

Rarely has a movie elicited such heated controversy well before anyone actually had the opportunity to view it. Based on the first in an astonishingly bestselling series of novels by Erika Leonard (E.L. for short) James, its catchy title had already been punned to death (Fifty Shades of Chicken, anyone ?) prior to the "official" film version, numerous YouTube send-ups and unauthorized adult adaptations notwithstanding. Pretty much every aspect of the material would be endlessly debated, from casting choices to the tale's "questionable" sexual politics, prior to the movie hitting theaters just in time for Valentine's Day of 2015. I haven't read the books cause I'm a guy and when it comes to "erotica" I prefer pictures to the printed page. Rest assured that there will be plenty of other reviews (in fact there already are) to compare one to the other.
What pleases me most about the film is that it has singlehandedly ended the drought of big screen skin flicks. Porno palaces are but a distant memory nowadays and while there has certainly been a considerable display of nudity and (not always) simulated sex on art-house screens, it is rarely presented as a pleasurable experience, thereby reducing audience stimulation to nil. I fondly remember the heyday of the sadly late Zalman King, back in the '90s, when polished soft-core porn (though, it must be stressed, always told from a female point of view, courtesy of King's significant other Patricia Louisiana Knop) like TWO MOON JUNCTION and WILD ORCHID played to packed houses. When he withdrew to the more carnally conducive channels of cable TV, there was hardly anyone left to pick up the sexual slack at mainstream multiplexes. One notable exception was Canadian (of Armenian descent) Atom Egoyan who abandoned art-house for the lurid delights of CHLOE and WHERE THE TRUTH LIES. Yet at the end of the day, these were still men treading on a woman's turf, claiming to do her carnal bidding but prohibited from accurately adopting her gaze because of their gender.
Fifty Shades, the novel(s), has reclaimed literary eroticism for a female audience, hence the innumerable inferior spin-offs it has spawned to date. The movie attempts to achieve the same goal for its cinematic counterpart. Rumors of the book's graphic depictions being drastically toned down have not prevented yours truly from being pleasantly surprised at just how far an R-rating will stretch nowadays as this plays mighty close to NC-17. Another kicker was just how knowingly Kelly Marcel's solid screenplay toys with the genre's attendant clichés, starting with its impossibly glamorous setting (Christian Grey's offices peopled exclusively with eye-popping runway model types in identical tight-fitting business suits) and the lifestyles of the idle rich most of us can only dream of. One of porn's most enduring hallmarks is that it takes place in an idealized fantasy setting where no aspect of daily drudgery can detract from the sex and this film is all but an exception but still satirizes the concept simultaneously.
Above all, this is a romance, for much of its duration (meet cute and initial courtship) a rom-com even, and a highly effective example of the form at that. The only difference being that the love and laughs, of which there are plenty (most of them intentional), are embellished with extended sex scenes of an increasingly BDSM slant. Members of said BDSM community have, of course, already spoken up that both novel and film completely misrepresent their erotic enclosure. Like so many, they are missing the point. The whips and handcuffs are part of Christian Grey's personal obsession which is at the center of what essentially amounts to an updated Gothic romance. I really like the fairytale flourishes added to the material, from Bluebeard (the secrets of the Red Room) to Beauty and the Beast (Christian allowing Anastasia to visit her mother in Georgia even though he can barely stand being without her at this point), elements that further enrich the tapestry woven by Misses James, Marcel and (drum roll) director Sam Taylor-Johnson. For the latter, this is the definitive rise from the ranks of relative anonymity after an intriguing contribution to 2006's porn anthology DESTRICTED showed she could handle screen sex and the early John Lennon biopic NOWHERE BOY proved she was capable of coping with actors. Needless to say, both abilities serve her exceedingly well on FIFTY SHADES.
The beautiful daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, and resembling both, Dakota Johnson is sure to become a household name after her turn as audience identification character Anastasia Steele, combining gauche inexperience (innocence rather than naiveté) with out of left field sophistication as she gets the 27-year old billionaire to do her bidding. This fantasy figure was always gonna be tough to cast but Irish-born Jamie Dornan (former Calvin Klein model, so that gets potential body issues out of the way, but especially memorable playing the psycho on TV's THE FALL) surpasses all preconceived notions and expectations by bringing a human dimension to what was very much in danger of ending up as a walking cliché. It also doesn't hurt that both actors strike sexual sparks off one another for the heavy breathing final act. Taylor-Johnson elegantly captures every nuance of the characters dancing around each other, sniffing each other out, building genuine eroticism through a succession of scenes, even (especially, in fact) when everyone's fully dressed. She only drops the ball once, switching to decorous slow motion when Christian wields the whip, literally softening the blows, an understandable if ill-advised tactic to render S&M more palatable stretching all the way back to Just Jaeckin's STORY OF O. The cliffhanger ending has me chomping at the bit for the surefire second installment. Honestly !