Deftly whipped into shape
CRITIC’S CHOICE Fifty Shades of Grey 18 cert, 120 mins þþþþ Advance ticket sales have been record-breaking. So, how has it all worked out? For anyone who struggled to wade through EL James’s insanely popular erotic novel, director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s assured adaptation is almost a form of revenge. It is a delight to watch the film-making slice through James’s verbiage, cleanly stripping off the fat. Dakota Johnson is instantly compelling as Anastasia, the bookish virgin seduced by the billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The sex scenes clamber up the scale in intensity, without ever really threatening to get white-hot. Even when Grey, with his riding crops and cat-o’-nine-tails and Red Room of Pain, would claim otherwise, these sequences stay well within the bounds of vanilla mainstream taste. Great art this is not – but it’s frisky, in charge of itself, and about as keenly felt a vision of this S&M power game as we could realistically have expected to see. Tim Robey ALSO IN CINEMAS Coherence 15 cert, 89 mins þþþ James Ward Byrkit’s headscrambling indie puzzle piece has a grabby premise, part Buñuel, part Body Snatchers: a dinner party falls into disarray when a passing comet tears open the space-time continuum, and a second set of guests appears, hungry for answers. Part of the fun lies in the suggestion that this lowkey invasion might just be an elaborate after-dinner game; as the characters reach for pen and paper, or the Yahtzee dice, or a Schrödinger’s cat analogy, their bafflements and breakthroughs become our own. The resulting disorientation, complicating social mores with quantum physics, will work your synapses like a Stephen Hawking-penned Sudoku. Mike McCahill Frisky: Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan star in the impressive adaptation of EL James’s novel Love is Strange 15 cert, 94 mins þþþ Most of Ira Sachs’s films could have been called Love is Strange. His latest is an endearingly precise comedy of manners in which Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), two charming, married, gay New Yorkers are forced to sell their apartment and shack up with family and friends, imposing on them and being imposed on in turn. It’s a little broadbrush at times, but the film’s emotional core is solid and it’s worth seeing for Molina, who blends pragmatism and warmth. Robbie Collin Two Night Stand 15 cert, 86 mins þþþ With her life in freefall, Megan (Analeigh Tipton) decides to try online dating and immediately finds Alec (Miles Teller). Next thing we know, Megan is waking up in Alec’s house following a night of no-strings-attached sex. So imagine the horror when Megan discovers that she can’t leave because a blizzard has put New York into lockdown. What to do with a total stranger while waiting for the snow to thaw? Fall in love? Why the hell not. Though the plot is as robust as an overcooked noodle, the film is saved by the two central performances. For long periods, it is just Tipton and Teller on screen and the fizzing chemistry between them ensures that their evolving relationship remains compelling. Rupert Hawksley