One star. Rated R, for strong sexual content, profanity and considerable nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.13.15
While it’s certainly true that
this film is better than the atrociously written book on which it’s based,
that’s damning with very faint praise.
Because this film still is a
stinker.
 |
| Hunky gazillionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) makes Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) an offer she absolutely should refuse: to become his "submissive" during a brief "relationship" that he promises won't include love. Hey, it's every girl's dream, right? |
Dakota Johnson is reasonably
persuasive as Anastasia Steele, the naïve, freshly minted college graduate who
enters a web of sexual sin with a blend of curiosity, wariness and endearing,
flirty innocence. Kelly Marcel’s screenplay also makes Ana smarter and spunkier
than the dim-bulb imbecile of E.L. James’ so-called novel, who constantly
talked and behaved as if she were 21 going on 12.
But Jamie Dornan is a total joke as
billionaire, super-stud businessman Christian Grey. Dornan couldn’t act his way
out of a snowball in hell; he actually makes Keanu Reeves look talented. Dornan
is as uncomfortable in this role as his Grey is in his impeccably tailored
clothes: stiff, awkward and wholly unconvincing.
Dornan’s line readings are the
stuff of acting workshop nightmares ... although, in fairness, I’m not sure
anybody could breathe credible life into this wooden dialogue.
Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has
precisely two tricks up her sleeve, and she uses both to wretched excess:
constant tight-tight-tight close-ups on her two stars, and instructions that
they deliver every word with breathy, clipped, arched-eyebrow hesitation. Both
affectations are the stuff of turgid afternoon TV soap operas, a level to which
this film constantly sinks.
An over-reliance on tight
close-ups minimizes a story’s sense of time and place; it’s also boring. Most
significantly, it denotes a director who doesn’t trust her cast, the theory
being that (for example) it’s easier for Dornan to emote if cinematographer
Seamus McGarvey moves his camera close enough for us to count the pores on
Christian Grey’s cheeks.
That’s the trouble with theories:
Not all of them turn out to be true.
Taylor-Johnson has only one
previous feature film to her credit: Nowhere Boy, 2009’s thoughtful biography
of John Lennon’s early years. It’s leagues better than this dull, turgid,
over-hyped and under-delivering mess.
One has to work pretty hard to
make naughty, onscreen sex boring. Taylor-Johnson works that hard. The coupling
and supposedly risqué sado-masochistic trappings don’t engage on any level, in
great part because Johnson and Dornan share zero chemistry. We’re apparently
supposed to be impressed by the mere fact that this story exposes a spicier
level of sex play than conventional American movies: the same “hook” that
apparently turned James’ book into such a best-seller.
Didn’t work there; doesn’t work
here.
I can’t fault Dornan; she has a
cute body, which she gamely bares at the drop of a necktie. She’s obviously
comfortable in her own skin, but Taylor-Johnson stages all the sex scenes in a
way that makes them cold, dull and unappealing: nowhere near the heights of
erotic ardor that Christian constantly promises his “Miss Steele.”
It reaches a point where we dread
each fresh occasion where Ana gets peeled out of her clothes: not because of
any concern over what Christian is about to do to her, but solely because we
know that we’re in for more lingering, slow pans over Johnson’s naked body.
Playboy photo shoots deliver
still pictures with more sensuality than this entire film can muster.
The plot, such as it is:
We meet Ana on the cusp of her
graduation from Washington State University, Vancouver, as an English
literature major. When roommate Kate (Eloise Mumford) catches a cold and cannot
make an interview scheduled in her capacity as a writer for the college
newspaper, Ana steps in and thus embarrasses herself during a silly Q&A
with Christian Grey, apparently the world’s most eligible bachelor.
He’s also an incredibly
successful investment consultant/analyst/whatever. We know this, because Dornan
creases his brow and “talks tough” during important business calls. (Cue the
first of many, many audience snickers during Wednesday evening’s preview
screening.)
Sparks ignite. She’s drawn to
him, a moth to a candle. He’s intrigued by her guilelessness, but nonetheless
warns that “I’m not the man for you.” She ignores this; so does he. (Giving her
some expensive Thomas Hardy first editions does rather muddle his intentions.)
They circle each other; her
eyebrows raise at his control-freak tendencies. He takes her to his Seattle
home — in his private helicopter, natch — and even shares the contents of his
locked “red room of pain.”
She eyes the racks of whips,
collars, belts and other instruments of sexual torture, and doesn’t bat an eye.
(What a gal!) He offers her a contract to become the 16th in his long line of
female sex toys. They spar, meanwhile becoming friends with benefits.
She begins to acquiesce,
tolerating a few of the “soft limits” of his peculiar forms of sexual pleasure.
We immediately lose all respect for her.
And so it goes ... and goes ...
and goes. Up to a finale that the book’s readers know is coming, but is
guaranteed to infuriate anybody unwise enough to walk into this film cold.
Marcel — whose only previous
credit is co-scripting 2013’s disappointing Saving Mr. Banks — did a few
smart things, while adapting James’ execrable book. Marcel very wisely
abandoned all of Ana’s relentless internal conversations with her “inner
goddess,” a phrase I grew to loathe. (Yes, I read the verdammt book. Every one
of its gawdforsaken 514 pages. Nearly killed me.)
Marcel also jettisoned Ana’s
wide-eyed glorification of everything Christian shares with her: Whether a
meal, a glass of wine or a piece of music, the book’s Ana is left awestruck,
proclaiming it “the best she’s ever tasted/drunk/heard.” The film’s Ana isn’t
such an unworldly, blathering boob.
Additionally, and perhaps most
wisely, Marcel minimizes Christian’s arrogant, control-freak tendencies, which
are beyond unsettling in James’ book.
On the other hand, this script
also abandons all of the supporting characters who gave the book at least some
dimension. Aside from Kate, all the others — Ana’s mother and step-father,
Christian’s brother, sister, mother and father — are granted no more than
eye-blink cameos.
I particularly miss Taylor,
Christian’s driver and sorta-kinda guardian, who is the book’s one genuinely
interesting character. He’s played here by the capable Max Martini, but given
very little to do.
Marcel also gives us only scant
examples of the book’s one truly charming gimmick: the snarky e-mail
conversations that flow between Ana and Christian ... which are far more
engaging than anything they say or do when actually in each other’s presence.
The film grants us a few of these exchanges, but not nearly enough.
What does that leave us with?
Endless slow, protracted scenes of Ana and Christian, Ana and Christian, Ana
and Christian ... testing each other’s boundaries and desires, ad infinitum. A
total yawn.
Which, finally, brings me to the
most bewildering element of this book’s success, which Taylor-Johnson’s film
faithfully reproduces: the moment when Ana demeans herself and obediently
becomes the “submissive” to Christian’s “dominant,” and kneels on the floor
with her back to him, naked except for some scanty panties.
And I was forced to wonder anew,
as I did while reading the book: All the progress we’ve made in this country,
with the grindingly slow march toward gender equality, and the American woman’s
best-selling novel of choice turns its female protagonist into the equivalent
of a compliant, concubine slave to an Islamic fanatic? Seriously?
Alternatively, all the heightened
awareness we’ve been granted — during the past decade in particular — about the
perils of unbalanced men who become fixated stalkers, and we’re supposed to
applaud when this story’s Ana submits to just such a person? Like, it’s acceptable
because he’s a) hunky; and b) rich? Again, seriously?
OK, I get it: James — whose
actual name is Erika Leonard (hence the “E.L.”) — has simply tapped into the
tried-and-true romance novel genre, layering it with some explicit sex. And
there’s no shortage of stories involving otherwise smart women who become
determined to “fix” damaged male lovers.
But a narrative must be credible
to win our emotional interest, and it also must be constructed with at least a
modicum of polish. James’ clumsy prose reads like a 12-year-old girl’s diary,
except that (one hopes) most adolescent girls wouldn’t be this salacious. No
surprise, then, that James’ only previous literary experience is the equally
overblown Internet fan-fiction that she wrote under the pen name “Snowqueen’s
Icedragon.”
Apparently, Fifty Shades of
Grey emerged from what began as a slice of Twilight fan fiction. That seems
reasonable: We can sense the insufferably contrived Bella/Edward vibe in this
story’s equally laughable Ana/Christian “relationship.”
We’ve seen, time and again, that
a good film can’t be made from a bad script. It therefore should come as no
surprise that a good film also can’t be made from an atrociously bad book.
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