Rick Morin: Movie Review - Fifty Shades of Grey

Starring:Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Ehle, Luke Grimes, Marcia Gay Harden, Max Martini, Eloise Mumford, Dylan Neal, Rita Ora, and Victor Rasuk.
Directed by: Sam Taylor-Johnson

Oh, the Hype!  Apart from LOTR, It’s difficult to recall the last time a movie has generated as much excitement and anticipation as 50 Shades of Grey, the big screen adaptation of the best selling erotic blockbuster by E.L. James. For some, the wait was ... please excuse the deliberate pun ... painful.

If you're not familiar with the story, here's a very brief synopsis, expertly cut and pasted by yours truly from Wikipedia:

"Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2015 American erotic romantic drama film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson with a screenplay by Kelly Marcel. The film stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, a college graduate who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with young business magnate Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan)."

My review of 50 Shades of Grey is, by necessity, written from a bloke’s perspective. However, because the story is unashamedly targeted at a very specific audience, which generally does not include my gender, a female friend accompanied me to the screening; A: to make sure I didn't miss the point of the movie, B: To lend moral support (I felt going on my own would have looked a little creepy) and C: I agreed to buy the popcorn.

My friend wisely insisted I read the book first to get a feel for the story which, umm, didn’t take too long. But more importantly, so I could better gauge the quality and authenticity of the actors chosen to bring E.L. James' principle players to life on the big screen. To loyal fans of the book, casting is paramount; Christian Grey must be an impossibly beautiful and wealthy young corporate leader. Anastasia Steel must be an impossibly naive, curiously attractive, tomboy-ish English Lit. Major.

And what about all those other characters just taking up space on the screen; Meh - pretty much anyone would have done. Only two people really matter here.

Sadly, the casting director got it only half right; Dakota Johnson was perfectly cast in the role of Anastasia Steel. She understood the character and delivered her lines with deft wit and subtlety, never missing a nuance. She got it.

As for Jamie Dornan who played Grey ... even Keanu Reeves would have said of his acting, "Whoa Dude! You're, like, really wooden"
This is unfortunate because there were some very funny lines taken directly from the book that fell flat coming out of Dornan’s mouth. He didn't get it.

The irony is that there are many actors who could have played Christian Grey beautifully: Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr, maybe even George Clooney. Alas, all too old.

The BDSM scenes, in spite of their inherently aggressive nature, were tastefully shot with some very nice editing, well timed cut-aways and subtle lighting.

But now a row has erupted between director Sam Taylor-Johnson and author E.L. James, who wants the movie to be loyal to her books and extremely explicit. Taylor-Johnson wants the trilogy to be more than just a vehicle for raunchy sex scenes and has indicated she won’t be back to direct the final two instalments, 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed.

Fundamentally, 50SOG is really nothing more than Mills and Boon on steroids. It’s a classic romantic fantasy involving all the usual themes: The handsome prince rides in on his noble white steed and takes the beautiful damsel away from her normal mundane existence to a beautiful castle where they live in luxury, leisure, and of course, pleasure!
Replace the noble white steed with a helicopter and the beautiful castle with the Red Room of Pain, and you’ve got 50 Shades of Grey!

To sum up Fifty Shades of Grey: Good, (not quite) clean, mostly harmless, fun.  

3 Cat-o-Nine Tails out of 5.