HE SAID/SHE SAID: REVIEWING 50 SHADES OF GREY,

Our reviewers take off their blindfolds to decide whether the hotly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey deserves to be punished or not

he said

Fifty Shades of Grey is every bit as purely fantastical as the Twilight books upon which it was initially based, so let’s just largely ignore its more gardenvariety absurdities: insanely rich, helicopter-piloting, spectacularly abbed business magnates who still apparently have enough time and desire to fly across the country chasing nondescript, reluctant women are roughly as prevalent as sparkly vegetarian vampires, and that’s OK.

So, too, is the fact that Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia Steele is basically a cloaking device of a character, a transparent outline of a human being. Honestly, the porniest thing about this movie is the fact that two people whose inner lives stop at the costume choices are almost immediately intent on boning (or whipping, I guess). Ana provokes a life-changing obsession in Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan, who delivers lines like a robot learning English) because she asks one personal question and likes Thomas Hardy; deeper understandings of someone’s rich inner life have emerged from glory holes. But, hey, she’s an audience surrogate: let your own story fill the space.

No, the real ridiculous thing about this movie is that it’s an erotic thriller that is profoundly unsexy, from its overarching stalker vibe to its tepid sex scenes, roiling with all the unbridled passion of used bath water. It tries to make a lot of hay about how sexy it is to be tied up and lightly flogged, but it also seems to treat the desire like it could only come from a diseased mind. It seems so ashamed that it passes beyond titillatingly bad-but-good and on to a frowning schoolmarm who is just going to put this wooden ruler into a locked drawer, thank you.

That’s probably because, as much as sex, the object of the movie’s obsession is business (and the material goods that its capable execution can acquire). The plot, such as there is, centres around Ana’s signing of Christian’s detailed submission contract, and the closest the movie gets to hot always has it close at hand: “F--k the paperwork,” says Grey, with all the passion of a TGIF-ing middle manager, as he puts Ana up against an elevator wall for their first kiss. The actual contract negation, in a suggestively lit conference room, provokes the most chemistry these two display, and Christian’s promises of what he’s going to do after they sign it would be downright steamy if he didn’t appear to be reading it off cue cards (“I’ll. Bend. You. Over. This. Table. [Tries not to look at camera].”)

This infects how the sex is depicted, too: director Sam Taylor-Johnson seems as much, if not more, interested in Christian’s expensive-looking toys as how he uses them. (This might explain why the sex has to be BDSM: it’s icky, but what other fetish lets you show off thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of consumer goods, no doubt bought from equally shrewd businesspeople?) When he gets out those ropes and cuffs, they’re almost always shown being clamped to brass rings or elaborate metal racks; Ana’s skin, the actually sexy part, is untouched in these bindings, a fact the movie overcompensates for by having her get 57% of the way to orgasm from light stomach kisses. If Christian was into zerberts this might have been the movie that introduced a mass audience to squirting. (Look it up on your own time, away from the office computer.)

I can only assume — pray, maybe — that the books were far more interested in the sex than the toys, because a world where something as resolutely bland and boring as this movie is a worldwide erotic phenomenon is too depressing to consider. I fault no one for whatever it is that gets their crank turning, but if Fifty Shades of Grey is working, you need to take that thing out for a spin far more often. Ω

she said

Christian Grey is kind of nuts.

That was the prevailing thought I had during Fifty Shades of Grey, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s adaptation of the book by E.L. James that, at one point in history, was selling two copies a second. I haven’t read the book, so there’s potentially an enormous amount of nuance to the Grey character that was not accurately depicted onscreen by Jamie Dornan. But having seen the film it’s difficult to reconcile the idea that anyone’s fantasy would involve being stalked and harangued by a billionaire whose ultimate goal is to have you sign a sex-contract.

Our two main characters, Grey and Anastasia Steele (played by Dakota Johnson), meet when Steele goes to the Grey Corp. HQ to interview the 27-year-old billionaire who she, somehow, knows nothing about (maybe it’s that flip phone she is hanging onto in the year 2014). She literally falls into his office. He stares at her without blinking for 10 straight minutes. She asks him if he’s gay. He says something about “harnessing people.” She admits to being an English lit student; he asks if it was Hardy, Austen or Brontë that attracted her. She says Hardy. Nope, he says, you are a lady — definitely Austin. She gets up to leave. He steals her paperwork. She is intimidated by him. Boom. Romance.

Before there’s even any idea of a sexual relationship between the two, Grey orders Ana to eat a muffin, says he is “not yet” a serial killer, tracks her down to a bar in the middle of the night, buys her a computer and, eventually, has her sign a non-disclosure agreement pertaining to their relationship (how is that not a red flag?). These events unfold as quickly and dryly as listed here, leaving no room for character development or any idea of why this guy is so into this girl — outside of her being the type of easily manipulated, inexperienced and virginal (in the literal sense of the word, though this is a problem that is “rectified” by Christian in one of the film’s many unfortunate choices of wording) woman over whom he can exercise control. This he hopes to do in the form of an actual contract outlining the type of sex he likes to have. It is this contract — not the sex itself — and its negotiation that comprises 75% of the film’s running time. It is the longest, unsexiest board meeting of all time.

After Ana does her research about the types of activities laid out in Christian’s sex-contract and deciding that, no, this isn’t for her, she sends him a text: “Nice knowing you.” Cold, but not cause for Christian to show up at her home in the middle of the night, walk into her bedroom, tie her up and have sex with her. This is not the romantic gesture of a scorned lover trying to win back the lady of his desire; this is an intrusion, and a crime. Maybe two.

As far as the sex is concerned, the problem isn’t that Grey likes it kinky. The problem is that he isn’t presented as a villain for his wooing tactics — the above incident, plus days of gifting and helicopter rides that serve the dual purpose of communicating his wealth to Ana while letting her know that she owes him one — but that his sexual proclivities are villainized. He describes himself as “50 shades of f--ked up” in regards to his affinity for bondage and light BDSM. He’s actually not normal because he’s an emotional manipulator. It’s problematic that this is presented as a sexy Cinderella story, when it’s a psychological horror that has little to do with unconventional lovemaking.

Christian and Ana’s romantic arc, meanwhile, is so telegraphed, by the time it hits the inevitable, “I want more from you!”/“You’re changing me!” argument, viewers may find themselves wishing for more contract talk. Still, the movie is coming out a day before Valentine’s, and James’ series has grossed half a billion dollars. Its dominance — at the box-office at least — will be without negotiation. Ω