E.L. James’ 2011 novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” is a tawdry bit of business. The saga of a ostensibly intelligent woman who can’t decide whether to give her lover permission to beat her is told with some of the most vapid writing since “Twilight.”
The similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s juvenile vampire trilogy don’t end there. (In fact, “Fifty Shades” got its start as “Twilight” fan fiction.) In her story of a young woman suppressing her free will to please a control freak —- and loving it — Anastasia Steele is Bella Swan all grown-up but with even less self-esteem. Bored readers could invent a fun drinking game out of James’ overuse of the word “murmur,” but otherwise “Fifty Shades” as a novel has no reason to exist.
Now it’s a movie that has no reason to exist either, except for brief moments when Dakota Johnson’s pretty face registers well-being. Those moments don’t happen when Johnson, as Anastasia, and Jamie Dornan, as her S&M dream man Christian Grey, are having sex. They happen when Anastasia is with her friends, her mother, her stepfather. Even when she is alone, gloriously drunk and waiting in a long line to pee, Anastasia seems happier than she is when confronted with Christian’s sexual weirdness. Then why does she go back and forth, side to side and in and out of her head about whether to become a prop in his sadistic games?
Those who have read “Fifty Shades” know what will happen. Kelly Marcel’s script sticks closely to James’ book, giving it a connect-the-dots feel. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has little room to stretch. Her job is to bring the story home even though there really is no story.
For those who haven’t read the book, here’s the lowdown: Anastasia, a clumsy virgin bookworm, meets Christian, a twentysomething Seattle billionaire, and they quickly become obsessed with each other, even though Christian doesn’t respect Anastasia’s freedom of choice in any matter. Anastasia is introduced to Christian’s bondage-and-domination cell and spends the rest of the movie deciding whether to commit to the “Red Room of Pain” or to run. It’s a whole lot of wishy-washy degradation embedded in a movie that’s a whole lot of nothing.
The big reveal of Christian’s torture chamber probably will be the cinematic highlight of the year for fans of the book, and there are a lot of them, as it has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and spawned two sequels. The room is offensively sanitized, a tidy collection of whips, chains, restraints, blindfolds, etc., in a meticulously clean space, as if to convey that Christian’s secret life doesn’t hurt anyone. But if it doesn’t, why don’t any of his women stay?
Even more chilling is the room Anastasia is given in Christian’s apartment. It’s a sparse collection of furniture with no indication anyone has ever lived there, even though 15 women have lived there before Anastasia. These “submissives” are nothing to Christian. All signs of their existences are wiped out of the room and out of his life.
That disquieting feeling that Christian’s women are interchangeable ciphers who leave no mark on him is reflected in Dornan’s performance. Dornan is handsome, to be sure, but who is Christian? James’ book, Marcel’s script and Dornan’s blank face don’t answer that question. A few hobbies are thrown in — he plays the piano! he flies a helicopter! — but Dornan’s inert presence make these chintzy attempts at dimension seem laughable. Johnson fares better. Anastasia is a dishrag, but with a glimmer of gumption. The movie wastes its supporting cast, especially the usually engaging Jennifer Ehle and Marcia Gay Harden, who aren’t given enough to do.
Christian insists, in the book and film, that S&M is the only life he knows, the only way he is willing to be, that he can’t and won’t change, that his women must change. He gets pleasure from beating them. They must accept this. Christian has the gall to tell Anastasia “try to keep an open mind.” Where’s his open mind?
And what do women get in return for submitting to Christian’s brutality? They get him. They give away their sovereignty over their own bodies and lives in exchange for a soulless man, handsome and wealthy as he may be. That’s a fair trade-off?
For a while, Anastasia seems to think so. Millions of readers, primarily women, loved Anastasia’s story. The distributor has decided this is a good Valentine’s Day weekend release. Ticket buyers have responded enthusiastically, making it the top movie of all time in advance ticket sales. The second and third parts of a trilogy already are in the works.
If that don’t beat all.
“FIFTY SHADES OF GREY” is a Universal Pictures / Focus Features wide release, 125 minutes and rated R for perverse sexuality.
