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Paean to BDSM is painful viewing
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CURIOUS? The posters for “Fifty Shades of Grey” coyly ask. Whether or not you’re one of the 100 million who bought, and presumably read, EL James’ kinky book, the buzz alone surrounding this “Twilight” fan fiction turned international phenomenon is enough to pique the interest of a rock. “Fifty Shades of Grey” is inherently spectacle.
With all that irresistible anticipation, how could a movie about BDSM be so run of the mill? The short answer: fear and money. It’s one thing to read about the bondage-enabled sexual awakening of a virgin. It’s quite another to see it depicted on screen.
Director Sam Taylor-Johnson had an impossible mission on her hands to meld the tawdry with the conventional. It’s like trying to mash up the sensibilities of Lars von Trier with Nancy Meyers to create an end product that will be appealing on a mass scale. In trying to please everyone, “Fifty Shades of Grey” has stripped away the fun and settled on palatable. There have been perfume commercials with more depth and story arc.
For the uninitiated, “Fifty Shades of Grey” is about lit student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and her torrid affair with 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). They meet when her aspiring journalist roommate gets ill and Anastasia agrees to interview the mogul.
Soon he’s whisking Ana away on his helicopter to a garish bachelor’s pad/penthouse apartment, wooing her with white wine, domineering gazes and antiquated formalities.
Laughable sexual innuendo peppers all their conversations.
But instead of the will-they-won’t-they tension that even the silliest sitcom can pull off effectively, the unfortunate consequence is that the nearly 40 minutes that it takes for Christian and Ana to go under the sheets almost seem more gratuitous than anything that happens in the Red Room of Pain.
Also, after the sex starts, so do the exhaustive and dull contract negotiations. We may have been curious going in, but by the time the credits roll, there’s another question that springs to mind: Is that all there is?
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