My take-away from “Fifty Shades of Grey?” The characters use Apple laptops but Android phones. Chalk the discrepancy up to product placement in a film where kinky sex is just another commodity.
Judging from grown women giggling like schoolgirls in sex-ed class at the naughty bits during a preview screening and the surprising critical admission, among some, that it is not as bad as feared, the marketplace will greet this film adaptation of the best seller with open, er, arms.
This stylish looking and cleverly crafted tale of a sexual sadist and his submissive, by director Sam Taylor-Johnson – who it should probably be noted is a woman – is the surprisingly un-erotic sum of disparate but familiar parts: de Sade by way of Jane Austen, the clinical sexuality of “Eyes Wide Shut,” the fetishistic materialism of “American Psycho,” the opposites attract forbidden love of “Twilight.”
She, played by Dakota Johnson – previously best known for the sitcom “Ben & Kate” and daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson – is an eye-rolling, lip-biting Annie Hall-type who snorts when she laughs. She is a literature student who works at a hardware store.
He, played by Jamie Dornan of TV’s “Once Upon A Time,” is an emotionally guarded Gordon Gecko type “telecommunications” billionaire with an unfortunate perm and the emotional demeanor of Bill Belichick. Like Batman, he has a secret identity, butler and a lair he calls a “playroom” full of sex toys.
They meet when she interviews him for the school paper, and later when she has too much to drink he holds her hair as she vomits in his monogramed handkerchief.
This qualifies as chivalry in a movie whose idea of romance is awkward fumbling, clunky dialogue (“If you were mine you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week”) and ends with the Johnson being fully naked, bound, blindfolded and whipped. Per usual Dornan only exposes his bum and his six pack.
Together they give new meaning to the term “to tie one on.”
Running through it are two disturbing themes: grooming an innocent, in the way of a pedophile, and the “I can change” him or her mantra of the chronically abused. Johnson has an adorable naturalness and retains as much dignity – if not her knickers – as one can under the circumstances.
But marketing this for Valentine’s Day begs the question: What’s love got to do with it?
** Two stars
With Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Victor Rasuk, Marcia Gay Harden, Luke Grimes, Max Martini.Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, E.L. James. Written by Kelly Marcel. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Produced by Rated R; pervasive sex, graphic nudity, language. Approximate running time 125 minutes.
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