Review of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) by Tim T — 04 Jun 2015

The best thing about this film is that its quite clear Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has talent. Its clear she knows what she's doing, implores excellent cinematography and the music by Danny Elfman is riveting, as always. Whats sad, therefore, is how depressingly dull and bland this film feels. The reason why this may be is that the director had the mammoth task of adapting the utterly diabolical novel into a feature film, which wasn't helped by the author's constant need to intervene. What's worse, the director will not be continuing to the film's sequel, rather the author will become MORE involved as a screenwriter!!!

The problem here is that the author's words are as eloquent and sophisticated as a child's dribble, something that doesn't transition well on screen. From the beginning, it's clear Taylor-Johnson tries to fight this, apparently cutting much of the author's ridiculous dialogue and numbingly repulsive torture sex and attempting to focus more on character development. Whilst I applaud this, truly, there are a couple of problems that arise as a result. The first, is that the film becomes exceedingly dull. Given 80% of the author's book is just, well, porn and with her limiting capabilities as a writer, most of the character development is either barely apparent or barely passable. This means that, for Johnson, she struggles to truly create a sensual film. The next is that, myself excluded, many will see this film for the same reason they read the books: it's an erotica story. But this film is not erotic, failing to live up to it's most 'useful' purpose.

Then we get to the central romance. Now, admittedly, both actors somewhat struggle with the screenplay given some of the grammatical inaccuracies get transitioned to film, making the foreplay much less interesting. Yes, this film does this. However, what truly sinks this film is the chemistry between the lead actors. Dakota Johnson is actually a very fine actress, and she really endevours to work with the terrible script and muddled story. Even in the first scene, her meeting with Mr. Grey, she excels in the script's comical (a nice touch by the director) elements and shines in the vulnerable moments. Unfortunately, Johnson is not matched well on screen. Jamie Dornan is wooden, uninteresting and frankly dull as a troubled Mr. Grey. He fails to become a truly engaging character and ruins the possibility of the film being even a guilty romance.

Worse still, the film has a terribly unsatisfied, rushed conclusion that leaves many threads unresolved. This means that YOU have to wait another year just to see if they get together again, which they will as it's so damn predictable. But, I must firmly digress, nothing is achieved by having unresolved endings to a film where it doesn't add further intrigue to the ongoing story. Fifty Shades does not do this. It leaves you feeling cold and cheated. I would be more inclined to have viewed this film if I knew the author had no involvement and the romance was not as shitty.

This film achieved the impossible by making erotica boring. Like the Transformers franchise, its baffling how something so creative or steamy can become so bland and uninspired. With help from the lead actor's wooden behaviour, shoddy dialogue, ridiculous and unrewarding sex scenes, an unsatisfying conclusion and the fact that it's adapted from E L James' miserable novel bury this film beyond hope of redemption. Whats more ironic is how the film's title, Fifty Shades of Grey, epitomises how you'll feel after the credits roll.