Well-directed and well-acted voyeurism delivers well on its objective

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2015)

I come to the movies to be entertained. I was very much entertained. I came this movie partially to see a character study featuring a virgin on the verge of college graduation coming of age at the hands of a self-advertised millionaire sadist who considers himself soulless. That is precisely what i got. THe other attraction of this movie, of course, was the opportunity to watch B & D sex set against a trashy love/lust story. This obviously is not for all tastes but just as obviously, given the box office, attracts many and half of the people I know who went once have now gone twice.
I see a lot of IMDb critics giving this movie one star on the basis of calling it soft porn. I won't deny that this film is right on the edge of soft porn and that if you don't like voyeuristic sex and soft porn, you should not go into the theater. Is there anyone who bought a ticket who did not know to expect "the sexual abuse of a young woman being used as supposed entertainment." I read this quote verbatim in at least three reviews. Like anything else, if you know you find such things so abhorrent, that's all you'll think about, then you SHOULD NOT GO to see this film.
Me, I like well-made soft-porn laced with occasional humor. As someone with what I consider a healthy and open-to-anything libido, I also enjoy watching naked bodies engage in kinky sex, especially when set up properly. For this kind of movie, the direction was incredibly crisp and cogent. Christian Grey was exactly the menacing, narcissistic yet charming control freak he was supposed to be. I found it impossible not to be overwhelmed and seduced by his power. I certainly found it easy to believe that Dakota Johnson would be. Marcia Gay Harden's brief turn as Grey's adopted mother is wonderful.
Even the many one-star haters seem to indicate that the direction and pacing (fantastic in my opinion) were not bad. I would say the best I've ever seen in a borderline soft-porn movie and among the best I've every seen for a trashy love story (Think Butterfly, The Other Side of Midnight, and Once is Not Enough). I'd also ask how a movie with decent direction could get ONE star (3 o4 4 would be more reasonable). I reserve ONE STAR for total disasters with totally incompetent direction like Homer and Eddie. This was slick, well-directed, and in my opinion (perhaps the biggest actually pertinent major disagreement with the critics) uniformly well-acted especially by the supporting cast and Johnson. I also did find the chemistry electric with Jamie properly stiff when he found himself confused by letting Anastasia into a heart he had blockaded and a soul he was convinced he didn't have.
As for the bodies shown, the nudity, the devices, and the choreography of the sex, I've never seen better. One problem I generally have with the borderline soft porn genre is spending two much time on mechanics. Most movies based on trashy novels also spend too much time dwelling on emotionally ravaged faces not quite executed bu mediocre actors. This movie never stopped coming at you with excitement, intrigue, and sex long enough to stagnate like that.
So, I had a great time and enjoyed it thoroughly and most of the 100+ women and 8 other men in the audience seemed to enjoy it on that basis as well. After all, they got what they knew they were coming to see.