Every now and then, a sensational film comes along. A film like Pretty Woman or Ghost.
A film that captures the moment and goes on to become something that women will love for ever. It lodges in the heart as a five-star classic, a four-hankie weepie, an unforgettable experience for the audience.
Fifty Shades Of Grey is not that kind of film. Despite the hype and the sex scenes filmed in full-screen buttockarama, the most anticipated release of the year is not much more than a spanking great bore.
Fans were promised lashings — literally — of passion and piping hot sex from this adaptation of the multi-million-selling erotic novel by E.L. James, who attended the world premiere in Berlin last night with the movie’s director and stars. Yes, this Fifty Shades Of Grim might have its titillating moments, but it just goes on and on and on for no good reason before ending in an abrupt and unsatisfactory way — the very definition of bad sex, not good.
Part of the difficulty is the lack of sexual chemistry between the two leads. This is a particularly acute problem in a tale of two lovers exploring a relationship that takes in the wilder shores of bondage, submission, dominance and terrible dialogue.
‘Laters, baby!’ cries hero Christian Grey, as he leaves his lover, Anastasia Steele.
‘Why won’t you let me in?’ she complains when he fails to open up to her emotionally.
Dakota Johnson plays klutzy university student Anastasia (Ana), while Jamie Dornan stars as kinky but handsome billionaire Mr Grey. They tear through this tale of raw passion like a couple of drippy teens, with neither party exhibiting the kind of dark sensuality needed to make this rom-com with extra dom even halfway believable.
‘I’m not exactly jumping at the opportunity to get whipped and chained in your red room of pain,’ Ana chirrups at one point, as if contemplating tidying her knicker drawer.
‘That was nice,’ she says, after taking a bit of a thrashing from Grey. Nice? You’d think he’d just given her a half-hearted peppermint foot rub.
Meanwhile, Grey’s eyes are supposed to blaze with seething lust all the time, but he just looks as if he’s suffering from trapped wind. Nurse, fetch the Tums!
It is true that this Hollywood adaptation is not as bad as the books. Even their most devoted fans would probably admit they were often clumsily written, teen-style steamy fiction.
British director Sam Taylor-Johnson has sliced through the worst of the dialogue, but overcompensated by making the film all too tasteful and ponderous, like an empty collection of slightly pervy but beautifully shot perfume adverts.
Poor Dakota — the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith — is often naked, with a high nipple count, lots of buttock shots and occasional flash of front bottom. Jamie gets to keep his jeans on a lot, which hardly seems fair or feminist, although we do get to see his impressive bottom, rippling with muscles like a bag of walnuts.
Of Christian Grey’s fabled manhood, which features so much in the books, there is no sight. Grey’s only hardware on show is his monogrammed helicopter, his glider and his collection of fancy cars.
Still, what else could Sam Taylor-Johnson do? The film of Fifty Shades had a difficult inception, with a number of actors, directors, writers and key personnel all being changed at short notice.
British screenwriter Patrick Marber was drafted in to beef up the script, then author E.L. James threw out all his work and reinserted her own dialogue.
She is famously proprietorial about Fifty Shades — and why not? Despite the fact that the books have little literary merit, she knows what her readers want: sex — and lots of it.
Exploring the world of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism (BDSM) might seem daring, but to be honest, the mass market appeal of 50 Shades is strictly old fashioned. The books struck a chord with women who want that timeless fantasy — to be swept away from their humdrum lives by a tide of passion over which they have no control.
These are presumably the kind of women who see Beyonce and Madonna turning the simplest pop song into a leather-clad psychosexual performance, and perhaps want some of that, too.
But might it be the case that this story is not really about sexual desire, but about the desire to be dominated by a handsome, rich Prince Charming?
What E.L. James has written is Cinderella, re-tooled for a more sexualised age. Ana’s pumpkin coach is Christian’s helicopter, her glass slipper is his silk blindfold.
On top of this, Fifty Shades The Movie has every fondly held rom-com cliche in the book. Christian Grey is dark and dangerous, a troubled man with emotional wounds. He is broken, and the heroine is the only one who can fix him. He saves her from getting run over! He plays the piano after sex — just like Richard Gere did in Pretty Woman.
There is even a post-coital scene in the film where Ana is happily frying bacon wearing one of his shirts, with her hair tied up in a fetching topknot. How many times have we seen that before.
‘Do you trust me?’ he says, undoing her hair. Yikes, what is he going to give her? A perm? Soon, they are walking hand in hand towards his sex dungeon for the first time — it’s a big moment in any relationship.
‘Are your Xboxes in there?’ she wonders. The Red Room of Pain where the tyings-up take place — infamous for those who have read the books — looks like a Pilates gym designed by Smythson, all sleek cherry leather and shiny clasps.
There are mysterious instruments hung on the walls; whips and manacles, yes. But what are the rest — squirrel tails, that feather duster from Downton Abbey, a paddle, two bread boards?
Meanwhile, there is some hanky panky with ice cubes and a bit of ever so tasteful, slow-motion peacock-feather-tickling that will remind many women not of their libido, but the fact that their mantelpiece could do with a dust.
And in the end of this modern, sexually adventurous load of nonsense, the hero throws the heroine over his knee and gives her a good spanking.
That was what John Wayne always did to Maureen O’Hara in films that were made more than half a century ago.
Haven’t we moved on from that? I think we all know the answer. - Daily Mail