Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey (18)

USA 2015 125 minutes Dir: Sam Taylor-Johnson Cast: Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Ehle, Marcia Gay Harden, Luke Grimes, Rita Ora

In one of those weird coincidences that often happens in the movies, astronomically hyped ‘mummy porn’ drama Fifty Shades of Grey opened in the UK on the same day as the frustratingly unheralded Love is Strange. Both movies deal with relationships – but that’s where the comparisons end. For if the latter is a beautifully observed same sex romance, with plenty to say about the enduring nature of love, then Fifty Shades is the movie equivalent of an inflatable doll: titillating but not something with which audiences are likely to form a long term relationship.

Not that it matters – in its opening weekend, the adaptation of EL James’ cause célèbre of an erotic novel took an enormous $240 million, easily quashing its $40 million budget. First conceived as a piece of Twilight fan fiction, James’ writing was subsequently seized and transformed into a full-blown literary phenomenon, chock full of dreadful prose about inner goddesses and characters giving looks ‘that suggest a mother hamster about to eat her young.’

Sadly but not at all surprisingly, the crassness of James’ source material proves an insurmountable hurdle for talented director Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose terrific 2009 John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy demonstrated real sensitivity and emotional intuition.   As with the novel, the story revolves around naive English Lit student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who decides on behalf of her sick roommate to interview smouldering millionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) for the college paper.

Before one can even murmur hot under the collar, they’re embarking on a passionate relationship, one that darkens when Grey reveals his ‘singular’ tastes for BDSM – essentially dominance and masochism. It transpires that Ana must sign what is effectively a bondage contract in order to become his ‘submissive’ if the relationship is to continue.

For all of Taylor-Johnson’s glossy visuals (helicopter shots of Seattle ahoy), there are only so many ways one can dress us the rottenness of the story, one distinctly lacking any sense of crisis or drama (unless one considers a prolonged decision to sign a piece of paper as dramatic).

Surprisingly, the movie’s key selling point is where it most obviously flakes out: the much touted sexual content feels relatively tame and coy, conforming to the standard approach of showing us more of the actress than of the actor. In fact, the real porn stems from the tedious consumerist fetishisation of Grey’s lifestyle – all helicopters, gliders and sickeningly lavish apartments. Carrie Bradshaw would feel right at home – they should have called it Sex and the Titty.

Perhaps the film’s overall sense of tepidness stems from the director’s much publicised fights with the author – one can sense that Taylor-Johnson is more comfortable mixing up the tone and playing the material for humorous laughs than she is playing it straight. However, these moments are all too few and far between, no doubt stymied by James’ influence behind the scenes.

In the face of such banality, there isn’t much that actors Johnson and Dornan can do with such poorly envisaged, unbelievable characters. Even so, it’s certainly not as bad as it could have been – screenwriter Kelly Marcel has effectively stripped out much of the idiocy present in the novel, namely Ana’s inner monologue, Seamus McGarvey’s coolly antiseptic cinematography gives everything a handsome sheen and Danny Elfman’s rippling score tries its best to create a compelling sense of emotional turbulence beneath all the handcuffs, ropes and riding crops. It’s just a shame that Fifty Shades of Grey resonates with all the bland, flavourless dimensions its title suggests.