Marval Movie

E. L. James novel of the same name is undoubtedly a phenomenon. It has sold at an unprecedented amount that has taken the world by surprise.

The book is an endeavour I never wish to undertake but still it is interesting to realise that there is an audience for this material of what lies beneath a seemingly picture perfect romance and what the needs and desires of one will inflict on the other.

The plot is about a girl and a boy. Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) is a young, pretty up-and-coming literary student that one day gets the job to interview to mysterious, the rich and powerful Mr. Christian Grey.  Mr. Grey is a self-admitting control freak in all things, who as his name would imply, has a taste for the colour grey.

These are two attractive people that are also very different from what the other has experience before. It is obvious that she wants him but he is the one that pursues, because as a twenty-seven year old billionaire he is obviously used to getting what he wants. Eventually, we all knew this was coming, Mr. Grey has a few dark shades to his personality, he is into domination. Awkwardness then ensues. I want every real woman out there to know that if they find then selves in this situation, run!

There is what is known as the Bechdel test. It is what I consider a fair test to see if the peice of media in-question is gender bias. Rule 1) it must have at least two female characters, 2) said female characters must talk to each-other 3) when they talk, they must talk about something other than a man. The movie fails the test.

Charlie Hunnam was cast as Mr. Grey but he dropped out. Now we have Jamie Dornan, he is an attractive man but when I saw him I thought about all the hype for what Mr. Grey should look like and he didn't really meld. But then I realised that there was no man that could be as attractive as what all the fans were building up in their mind. For his performance itself it is fine enough.

The movie actually impressed me with how self aware it was with what it is. It doesn't pretend to be the most complex love story for the ages or redefine sex for the masses or that this is the most important movie you will ever see. It adds in double meaning and sly comments and it knows exactly what its doing and who its catering for. The whole book was written as a pornographic fan-fiction and that is how it plays, as straight faced as the situation will allow.

Time to address the big grey elephant in the room, the sex scenes. They are frequent and indulgent when they come which we all knew was coming. There is also one sided nudity, not fair. This material is for the women, is it not? Then surely we should have equality with the nudity.

It was in the moments between all the extended sex scenes when I really did think, what is the attraction here? I will buy that there is something to Anna that Grey finds attractive but why is Anna so entranced with him? Sure he is attractive but is the weird fetish and controlling nature of this man enough? Maybe when you strip it away its just because he has fancy suits, a luxurious apartment a garage full of cool cars.

It isnt until the last third of the movie where it does take itself too seriously and you begin to look at whats on-screen as rather ridiculous and overblown and self indulgent.

The fact that this movie isn't one of the worst things I've seen on-screen was already a surprise. Also, given the subject matter, this is probably the best movie that could have come out of it. It is still shallow and fan catering but that is the source material, so i guess theres nothing to be done.

Rating: 2 1/12 stars out of 4