S&M sequel that’s as ropey as they come

Fifty Shades Freed 18 cert, 105 min

★★★★★

Dir James Foley Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Rita Ora, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Ehle, Ariel Kebbel

Unlike the first two instalments of EL James’s gauzy soft-core trilogy, Fifty Shades Freed was not screened in advance anywhere in the UK. So in order to see it, your intrepid critic made a 16-hour round trip to Paris, where the film opened on Wednesday in the driving snow, in order to send back advance word that, yes, it is even ropier than the second one.

The French title, Cinquante Nuances Plus Claires, has a certain purring mystique that felt quite promising, but as far as nuances on screen were concerned, I counted zero. This is a film in which one of the more emotionally detailed performances is given by a product-placement Audi.

The film rejoins Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) and Christian (Jamie Dornan) on the morning of their wedding, when things seem to have calmed down somewhat. In place of the emotional stage-setting another film might waste its time on, there is a lengthy getting-ready montage, with drooling close-ups of Anastasia slipping into her lacy gown while her husband-to-be fastens his cufflinks.

As they recite their vows, Ana’s smiling pledge to honour and respect her husband stirs up memories of the contract scene in the first film, in which Ana signs up to Christian’s sadomasochistic hobby. Are we supposed to make the link? It’s hard to tell. Fifty Shades Freed seems incapable of taking a position on anything more complicated than which direction its camera should be pointing in – and during the sex scenes even that seems touch-and-go.

There are complex and conflicted characters and then there are scripts that don’t add up, and Fifty Shades Freed’s screenplay, adapted from James’s book by Niall Leonard, the author’s husband, repeatedly crashlands into the latter category.

The story, insofar as there is one, centres on the return of Anastasia’s lunatic ex-boss Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), who at one point kidnaps Christian’s sister (played by pop star Rita Ora).

As for the kink factor, we discover that Christian’s party piece at the piano is Maybe I’m Amazed, which just about sums it up: this 28-year-old playboy libertine with unconventional tastes turns out to be big on Wings-era Paul Mccartney. I give him six months of marriage before he clears out the S&M gear from the Red Room of Pain and puts in a train set.