Freed of this tepid trilogy
Final instalment is shortest, but it still feels interminable
A romantic trilogy is a rarity — and for good reason. The run-ofthe-mill climax of just about any film, across any genre, is its protagonist finding what they sought after overcoming great obstacles.
But in 1995, along came Before Sunrise, the first in a romantic trilogy from Richard Linklater (Before Sunset, Before Midnight), following Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as lovers over three decades.
It’s unlikely anyone expected the Fifty Shades trilogy to live up to Linklater’s. Nor did it need to. It spans a quick three years with nary a plot. Adapted from bestselling novels by E.L. James that began as Twilight fan fiction, the source material was not much more than soft pornography for soap fanatics.
Following the BDSM relationship between multimillionaire business magnate Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and university grad-turned-publishing assistant Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), it is a story more about sex than love.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and now Fifty Shades Freed seemed to want to follow a faster, sexier path than the Linklater trilogy, eventually swapping whips and handcuffs for diapers and family dinners.
Which might have been fine had the Fifty Shades movies been remotely erotic. The first two films boasted about as many sex scenes as the average rom-com, with any BDSM depictions reduced to a few spanks or lashes of a whip. Fifty Shades Freed certainly ups the ante, chock full of more intimacy and nudity than its predecessors combined — as if all those cut scenes on the editing room floor were gathered together for one last hurrah.
But no amount of skin nor moans can translate to sexiness if the chemistry just isn’t there. Dornan and Johnson might as well be two twigs slapping against each other — though at least then there might be a chance of a spark.
While Johnson isn’t asked to accomplish much, she manages Ana’s sly coquettishness well. But Dornan’s eyes remain as empty as the film, similarly wrapped in a deceivingly pretty package.
In its final instalment, we see the two marry with hints of a baby on the way, a contrived arc made all the more vacuous by a lazy, halfbaked subplot involving Ana’s former boss returning to seek revenge after Christian had him fired for assaulting her in the middle film.
You’d think such a narrative tool wouldn’t be necessary for its photogenic hero. Christian is a handsome robot who mindlessly blurts commands to Ana like a bored broken record — “I don’t want another baby because you will love it more than me!” “Don’t show skin when I’m not around!” “Don’t be alone in a room with a man unless it’s me!” — but she somehow seems to fall more in love with him as time wears on.
He remains controlling, demanding, unrelenting. And each time she shows glimmers of independence and a growing confidence, he snuffs them out. Just as it started, the trilogy ends: Whatever Christian wants, including Ana, Christian gets.
It’s a wonder their “love story” spread itself across three films. At just 105 minutes, Freed is the shortest of the trilogy, but feels like the longest as it inches toward the end.