Time’s Up on ‘Fifty Shades’
Final installment is out of touch, vexing.
If there is a bad place, in the words of Kristen Bell on the existential comedy The Good Place, mine is a room with no snacks that shows the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise on a loop. I recently sat in a theater watching Fifty Shades Freed (in theaters Friday), the final chapter of the kink-infused romance foisted upon us by author E.L. James. And what was bothering me wasn’t the immediate shift into matrimony, or, say, the Kimye flower wall that Freed co-opted for said wedding sequence.
The problem is that I’ve had frozen Indian food with more heat than this franchise. (Trader Joe’s Butter Chicken — try it, highly recommend.)
The excitement of the Fifty
Shades series was that women could own a mainstream appropriation of kink. They could march into Target and buy branded vibrating rings, lube and blindfolds. In book clubs, they’d talk openly with their friends about the pursuit of pleasure, using Anastasia and Christian as ciphers in faux-shocked conversations. When the first book published, Jimmyjane, a sex toy company, saw a 40% surge in sales.
But strip back the sheets, and the sum of Fifty Shades reveals itself simply to be a dated Cinderella story with the princess buckled into leather handcuffs.
In a moment lit with declarations that Time’s Up, we’re going to need a little more from Anastasia, whose wide-eyed glee at private jets and a surprise waterfront mansion (why would she want to see it first?) is not just cheesy, but vexing.
Freed finds Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) in the throes of newlywed bliss with her brooding billionaire husband, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). In the opening moments, she “defies” him on a topless beach in Europe, and he JetSkis her back to their yacht, where he “punishes” her in their cabin.
That’s their thing, but as soon as
the sex is over, Ana the Lamb returns.
Worse are the cringeworthy attempts by filmmakers, in this era of Me Too and Women’s Marches, to slip their leading lady a whiff of agency. Ana takes the wheel of Christian’s sports car! She goes to a bar with a girlfriend even though her husband says not to! She (and we) are living on a stretch of Christian’s leash.
And so, trying to achieve a Zen place for 101 minutes, my mind wandered back to Fifty’s origin story.
In book form, Fifty Shades of Grey became a massive best seller, thanks to a savvy marketing campaign (and, uh, story) borrowed from Twilight. Fifty’s publisher dressed James’ tale of dominants and submissives in discreet book jackets you could take to the beach! Or read on a plane! Or skim on the subway!
It was fun. And it made James rich. In
2013, Forbes pegged her net worth at
$95 million. That was before the movies. In Hollywood, it was said that the Fifty Shades franchise was guaranteed to make any working actor a star. The Internet made hay of dream-casting it. Everyone in town auditioned for it, from Emilia Clarke to Alexander Skarsgård. Even if a burgeoning star wasn’t comfortable with the required nudity, agents pleaded with clients to consider it, calling the roles career game changers.
And the films certainly made money, despite critics dousing the BDSM franchise in haterade. The original film earned a less-than-sexy 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; Fifty Shades Darker plummeted to 10%.
But it hardly mattered.
Fifty Shades of Grey pulled in
$166 million in 2015, and though the sequel, Darker, slipped last year, it still managed to haul in an impressive
$114 million. Freed is looking as if it will seduce audiences out of $90 million to
$100 million. Should it hit expected targets, Fifty is about to become a billion-dollar franchise worldwide.
Yet in its wake, the franchise’s scantily clad stars haven’t exactly been able to write their own tickets.
In a rare turn, James secured casting approval for the films. Charlie Hunnam famously backed out after originally being cast as Christian opposite Johnson, who secured the role of the mousy, innocent Ana. In hindsight, Hunnam’s hightail was a good call. Compare his and Dornan’s careers: about equal, with both sporting a fair share of swings and misses since Fifty Shades first hit theaters.
But only one had to throw a scripted tantrum when Anastasia refused to update her work email to her married name.
Johnson, the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, had best been known for the Fox sitcom Ben and Kate (which, for the record, I very much liked). Fifty Shades has made her a fashion darling and a paparazzi target; but career-wise, the prognosis is foggy. To date, Johnson’s biggest showcases outside Grey’s confines have been the unimpressive comedy film How to Be Single and a small if winning turn in Black Mass.
Aside from its leads’ puzzling lack of chemistry, the rub of Fifty Shades remains that the source material is the equivalent of a hangover by way of cheap champagne. A naïve college virgin falls for an increasingly possessive rich guy. He cajoles her to his penthouse and straps her up in the Red Room. Yada yada yada, they’re engaged and in a year, she’s running the publishing house he owns. Sure. Spoiler ahead, but I can’t help it:
It remains just as maddening in film form as it was in the book that in a modern representation of sex, love and informed consent, Ana can’t grasp how to manage her own birth control.
It’s OK. The lock is sprung. All parties are now, mercifully, freed.