Review of Sex Story: Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) by Linda F — 19 Jan 2016

Fifty Shades is fascinatingly bad. It's clear right from the get-go that a lot of effort went into this movie, talented people were involved in making it. The opening shots of Seattle are quite lovely, and the music is nice and moody. All things considered the movie looks and sounds great. But then the characters start talking and it all goes to hell. Christian Grey is one of the most profoundly boring characters I've ever seen in a movie. He talks like a robot with nothing interesting to say, and every woman who gets any screen-time can't stop talking about how hot he is as if that gives him character. He has a moderately interesting backstory involving some childhood trauma, but then the movie tries to use this as an explanation for his controlling nature and fascination with S&M, which is offensive to both survivors of abusive relationships and people in the S&M lifestyle (all of whom, by the way, have disowned this story as BS). His decisions make no sense, when in one scene he'll tell Anastasia to stay away from him and that he's not right for her, and in the very next one he'll give her some extravagant gift. Either he's a manipulative dick, or he's just a poorly written character, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Anastasia Steele isn't much better. I really have trouble saying much about her even, she's your stereotypical clumsy shy girl, but to such a degree my forehead became sore from all the facepalming it caused. And that's all I can say about her, she's boring. Her chemistry with Christian is simply non-existent. The erotic scenes they share have no hint of eroticism. Things are happening that I recognize as supposedly sexy things, but they simply aren't sexy. Truth be told I was more bored by the sex scenes than I was by the character scenes, at least those could provide a few unintentional laughs.

Fifty Shades of Grey is like a porno with too much story and all the sex taken out as written by someone who's never had sex in their life and only has the loosest idea what eroticism is. The story originated as a Twilight fanfiction which doesn't surprise me in the least, but what does surprise me is that it was written by a middle aged woman when it feels more like it was written by a 12 year-old just learning what sex is. It's a bad movie, and an embaressment to S&M, sex, and relationships in general. I will admit that it is very well shot, the colors are nice and when the characters don't talk there are some very lovely moments. But you can cover a turd in diamonds, but it will still be a turd.