With Valentine's Day just around the corner, pretty much everyone is dying for the sweet, sweet release of the movie adaptation of what Variety film critic Justin Chang called E.L. James' "best-selling assault on sexual mores, good taste, and the English language." He is, of course, referring to Fifty Shades of Grey.
Set to hit theaters on Feb. 13 with a toned-down R rating, Fifty Shades of Grey is a Twilight fan-fiction that has evolved into an international phenomenon. Even people who detest the author's horrendous writing style and the characters devoid of depth -- and the people who have been warned by the former not to pick up a copy of the book -- are curious what this hype is all about.
Well, mainly, the hype is all about the carefully crafted titillation the movie elicits from its audience. While Fifty Shades of Grey itself elicited a lukewarm response from film critics, it is most definitely a steamy experience that will get viewers in the right hot-and-bothered tone perfect for Valentine's Day. Like the taboo world of BDSM it attempts to portray, the film brings with it a mixture of pleasure and pain that viewers will have to take in all at the same time, or none at all.
If there is only one thing to point out about the movie's strengths, it is mostly because it cuts out most of the parts that made the book so widely panned; in other words, the references to Anastasia "Ana" Steele's "inner goddess" and that scene that involves a female hygiene product. In fact, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum even called it "sort of classy-looking, in a generic, TV-ad-for-bath-oil way."
"Dakota Johnson, who plays the virgin English literature major Anastasia Steele, and Jamie Dornan, who plays Christian Grey, the wildly rich and sexually particular business titan who wants Ms. Steele in his playroom, are exceedingly attractive actors with enviably supple bodies well-suited to nakedness," Schwarzbaum wrote. "And really, under the circumstances, moveable parts matter more than acting skills."
Even so, director Sam Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel took an entire 40 minutes to build up to the first sex scene, when the innocent, doe-eyed Ana goes from virginal to deflowered.
Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a slow build to the smutty bids, and one that's disappointingly devoid of tension."
That is attributed mainly to the zero to middling chemistry between Johnson and Dornan, and IndieWire's Rodrigo Perez eyed the same lack of tension.
"Their chemistry is nonexistent and we've all seen high school science experiments yield more sparks than the pairing of Dornan and Johnson, both of whom appear as if they'd like to be anywhere else," wrote Perez.
Other critics, such as Lindsey Bahr of the Associated Press, said the sparks between the film's two leads are a hit-and-miss. Sometimes, it's there, and sometimes, she agreed with Perez.
"The chemistry between Johnson and Dornan is decent, even if they do seem to be acting in different movies," Bahr wrote. "Dornan's Christian is a humorless caricature, while Johnson's Ana is actually quite likable, funny, and strong-willed. In a film full of flaws, Johnson is an undeniable bright spot."
Although Linden said Johnson's character could use some work as does Dornan's, the actress was successful in bringing out the paradox in Ana -- how she snickered at Christian's predilections yet is unfailingly turned on by them.
"Although the character's literary leanings are as flatly drawn as Grey's vague philanthropic undertakings and high-powered tech-biz talk, Johnson is captivating," Linden wrote. "Her facial features recall both her parents (Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) but she's very much her own actor."
As for the film's sado-masochistic themes, critics are surprised, if not mildly disappointed, that the scenes inside Christian's infamous Red Room of Pain are a little vanilla, which is perhaps the result of catering to a younger audience instead of being given the NC-17 rating it should have had instead. Yes, there are handcuffs and whips and floggers and the intriguing red leather belt, but nothing more to shock even the few people who have not heard about the book.
Still, as Chang wrote, the sex scenes are "appreciably more explicit than the studio room while steering clear of anything objectionable." In a film that basically has the same Cinderella-esque storyline infused with themes of sexual taboo, it's the bedroom action that gets the most attention.
"Breasts and buttocks are lavished with matter-of-fact attention in d.p. (director of photography) Seamus McGarvey's precisely framed widescreen compositions while a trio of editors ... navigate smoothly between close-ups and full-body shots, their every cut maintaining a visual partition around the actors' modesty," said Chang.
So, there you have it. If you're looking to catch a glimpse of Johnson's or Dornan's private bits, this is not your lucky day. Still, the filmmakers have done well enough to lend you a fantasy for the upcoming romance-filled weekend, and Fifty Shades of Grey is sure to be the hottest film for Valentine's Day.
Just be sure you're able to slip out of that fantasy afterwards -- because, in real life, a naïve, hopeless romantic like Ana will never be able to control any ice-cold man with a history of sexual abuse like Christian, to change him to want a relationship with all the trappings of love.
"What the movie indistinctly suggests is the concept of subverting control, the idea of the submissive turning the tables on the dominant through, what else, love," said Perez. "And while this might seem more textured than the boy-meets-girl vapidity of the movie, it's really just another unfortunate version of the girl who believes she can change the complex man she doesn't actually connect with into someone she can love."
