A two hour trailer

Rating: 1/10 (22 February 2015)

I have never seen such a lifeless, underwritten script make it to the screen, let alone with such a budget. A slow build up, I was expecting, but where was the suspense? This is a story about sex and yet there was no obvious reason why they would have sex. It was all mechanistic tease, no enjoyment, no orgasms. When Christian finally gets Anastasia in his Playroom he doesn't seem to enjoy himself anymore than when they did it 'vanilla' style. There could have been so much more detail here, so much more characterisation - we can assume that Gray can only orgasm in a bondage situation, but where was the evidence? Think of 'Some Like it Hot', with Tony Curtis feigning lack of interest while Marilyn Monroe lies on top of him - and that was a far sexier film. I like this director's work - her film about John Lennon was funny and poignant - but this script was almost unfilmable. The depressing thought is, and this evidence proves it, that box office failure was inconceivable, however bad the end result. Dakota Johnson does her best and brings some humour and vulnerability to the role, and manages to make the abrupt changes of mind (mostly) believable, despite minimal support from the dialogue. But Jamie Dornan is just pleasant, a nice looking boy like you might find waiting at your table in a Dublin restaurant. Totally miscast, too young, merely eye candy. (Reminded me of George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. But that was a movie with a *story*.) Meanwhile, if you want the eye candy then there's plenty of pics of Mr Dornan available on the web in various stages of undress. There's plenty of pics, and indeed films, where you can see people having sex and giving a damn sight better impression of enjoying it. Save your money. Please.