I don’t know who or what director Sam Taylor-Johnson sacrificed to the god of false bondage, but it worked: Fifty Shades of Grey is the best film it could have possibly been given the circumstances.
This is quite a different thing from saying it’s good. It’s not. At its core, this adaptation of E.L. James’ notoriously sloppy stab at smut is still the same rotten perpetuation of disturbed individuals in an abusive relationship masquerading as an entry point into the world of BDSM relationships. The behavior of billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) is still closer to that of a psychopathic stalker than a dominant who values the pleasure of his partner, and the conversations between him and budding submissive Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) are alternately repetitive, uneventful and preposterous. Every literary and social criticism of the novel applies to this adaptation, and you might want to look up the impressive #50Dollars Not50Shades campaign against abuse of women that has been mounted in response.
That said, any failure to mention the efforts of actress Johnson and director Taylor-Johnson (no relation) is to ignore two of the most valiant attempts to find artistic depth where none exists in recent memory. Anastasia’s dialogue remains laughable, but Johnson’s portrayal of her is playful and curious. E.L. James’ Anastasia was simply enacting half-baked fantasies of being dominated, while Johnson’s Anastasia is on a real journey. The lousy dialogue works when it’s played as though it was always supposed to be funny, like she’s putting on a performance as she flirts with a lifestyle she never anticipated.
Director Taylor-Johnson’s background in fine arts is her biggest asset, and the film looks gorgeous and tasteful throughout, even when the subject matter is not. Her treatment of even the most explicit sex scenes is surprisingly understated. The initial pace is brisk and the screen is almost always filled with something gorgeous to appreciate, so much so that for the first hour, you may even be fooled into thinking you’re watching a good movie that’ll go someplace worthwhile.
Yet despite their best efforts, the combined talents of director and star do not give Fifty Shades of Grey enough thrust to break free of the black hole of its source material and awful leading man, and the promising start begins to unravel in the second half. Anastasia and Christian constantly play out the same scenario and conversation: he appears cryptic and controlling, she withdraws, he makes a supposedly lavish (but actually creepy and overbearing) gesture, they have romantic sex, repeat. It takes forever to get to the supposedly kinky stuff that fueled the book’s success, but even that is boilerplate ties and restraints (until the awful conclusion). Dornan finds no such weight in his role as Johnson found in hers, and his presence weighs down every scene in which she soars. And not that anybody needs to see him naked, but Johnson’s total willingness to expose herself while Dornan apparently finds the time between sessions to throw on a pair of designer jeans is perplexing and distracting, two qualities that tend not to work in erotica.
As a cultural phenomenon, Fifty Shades of Grey is a harmful, contemptible, appalling reconfirmation of the stereotype that practitioners of alternative lifestyles are inherently damaged, and the film never manages to overcome this, even with its strengths. A movie worth seeing this ain’t, but if there’s any justice in this world, Dakota Johnson and Sam Taylor-Johnson will be propelled to superstardom and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.
Playing this week
American Sniper
Birdman
Hot Tub Time Machine 2
The Imitation Game
Jupiter Ascending
Kingsmen: The Secret Service
McFarland, USA
Paddington
Project Almanac
Seventh Son
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213
