Going into the Wednesday night critic’s screening of “50 Shades of Grey” three questions begged to to be answered. One, will the film be sexy? Two, might it be romantic? And, three, could it possibly be both?
“50 Shades” has its sexy moments, but never attempts to be romantic, and isn’t ambitious enough to deliver romance and sex appeal simultaneously. Such a thing would be magic, and no one, not even the biggest E.L James fan, would describe this dour handling of the scandalous source material as the least bit magical. It qualifies for its “R” rating with graphic but disappointingly tame depictions of sex focused somewhat half-heartedly on sadomasochism. When the two parties are not involved in bedroom activities, the movie is just dull. In fact, “50 Shades of Grey” was so boring in places that the select public viewers that were strategically placed in the theater were reaching for their cell phones in the dark presumably to check the time.
At one point in “50 Shades,” Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) innocently and awkwardly asks Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) whether he is a sadist. He tells her that he’s a dominant. Much of the story focuses on Christian’s seduction of college student Anastasia attempting to enlist her in his twisted world of pain and pleasure. And what might be intriguing on the page proves to be laughable on the screen. Fans of the book, who will make up most of the audience, will be waiting with baited breath for Christian to unlock his red room, but when that actually happens, you can’t help but chuckle. Sure, Christian is a billionaire and can have an elaborate room built for his fetish (his “singular tastes”), but such a place just looks like something created by someone who merely studied sadomasochism on the Internet and has no first hand experience with the practice of it. This fantasy needed a little dose of reality to immerse us more in the dangerous world that Christian inhabits. Context is lacking for those of us that did not read the best-selling novels.
And while much of the problem here is the stilted dialogue, the performances don’t help either. Jamie Dornan as Christian is given the thankless task of playing a monotone misogynist. The performance is so placid (dare I suggest something else) and controlled that it lacks all charisma. And that would be fine if the foil in Anastasia was given more depth. A good comparison would be Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, in which Christian Bale, who’s won the Oscar, was not a very charismatic lead. It was the Joker who kept us riveted. Instead, in “50 Shades” Anastasia’s backstory plays directly against character—her naivety makes little sense. To be fair, Dakota Johnson certainly pulls off the look of Anastasia but never seems to fully understand her. This may be because the character is so utterly contrived. Most women would run fast from that red room, and yet, Anastasia does not. She is more mercurial than Christian, but the viewer has little interest in unraveling the mystery. Christian is an empty suit, but Anastasia vacillates so much in her emotions that the character is frustratingly vacant. Compare Charlotte Gainsbourg’s brave work in Lars von Trier’s edgy but not completely satisfying “Nymphomaniac” films.
Both Dornan’s and Johnson’s acting deficiencies are exposed when Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden steps on screen playing Christian’s mother. She upstages both of them by just seeming to be real and natural. Harden isn’t given much to do, but at least, she seems to be having fun. And “fun” is in short supply in this leaden adaptation.
Playing everything so deathly serious may be “50 Shades” undoing. It isn’t even trashy. And a hefty helping of trash would have helped. The depictions of sadomasochistic behavior are shot so flatly that they lose the vital sexy edge. The over-the-top musical score supplants what should have been actual bedroom sounds making it impossible to believe the activities are genuine. The credibility problem is partially because the producers required an “R” rating (as opposed to an NC-17) so everything explicit is clipped and tucked lest there be something that approximates real relations caught on screen. We get a highly stylized impressions of sex but, save for one non-sadomasochistic exchange, the impressions aren’t very convincing. These two beautiful people don’t appear to be having a good time when they’re doing it. And that’s when you know the relationship has to end.
“50 Shades of Grey” may be the start of a trilogy, but if it ended with this film, few of us would cry foul.