MOVIE REVIEW: THE FIFTY SHADES TRILOGY (2015-2018)
As I have said many times before,
I will watch anything once. This is especially true when I don’t have to pay
any of my own money. With Redbox gift codes at our disposal, my wife and I let
curiosity get the best of us. Much was said and written about these movies and
the books they are based on. In truth, these movies aren’t the unmitigated
train wrecks that some detractors claim, but individually, and as a series, the
Fifty Shades flicks are proof that box office success is not indicative of
quality.
The first book in the series started out as Twilight bondage fan fiction on the internet. Perhaps it’s just me, but once you know this information, it can’t be put aside. I didn’t care much for the Twilight movies, so I approached this movie with low expectations. This served me well, as this supposed kinky and erotic tale proved to be unsatisfying in just about every aspect.
Even after re-writing the original story to avoid copyright infringement, and after script modifications, Fifty Shades of Grey still resembles the ripoff of Twilight that it has always been. Instead of an awkward teenager falling in love with a vampire, we have Anastasia ‘Ana’ Steele, an awkward college senior, catching the eye of Christan Grey, a young billionaire (though he’s got even less of a soul as his Twilight counterpart). Christian’s source of wealth is glossed over quickly and vaguely, because how he became rich is far less important than the furnishings he spends his money on. Attraction quickly turns into a contract proposal for Ana to become his submissive lover in his Red Room full of BDSM furniture and gadgets.
There is an attempt at a subplot involving Ana trying to figure out why Christian is so emotionally distant, but it never gets very far and it’s not important to the rest of the story, thin as it may be. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know how closely the film is adapted, but either the screenwriters did their best not to deviate far from the source material (I recall reading that the author secured a high degree of supervision over the film’s production) or there wasn’t much to salvage so they just didn’t bother. I’m not sure which option is right, and I’m not sure which option would be worse if true. The script is flimsy when it’s not trying to shock you with sexual content, but again- this started as Twilight bondage fan fiction on the internet, so what could we really expect?
Given the flaccid script, there was no chance for the actors to save the film. Dakota Johnson earns a little respect for being willing to go all the way with what the story demands of her character, but being the star of a film that makes up for its many limitations with a few salacious scenes will and has set back her career prospects. This isn’t the kind of film that’s going to grow anyone as an actor. Case in point- Jamie Dornan seems lost as Christian Grey. His character was always destined to be remembered more for how he looked than the acting performance, but even I didn’t set my bar low enough to be okay with a romantic lead who clearly has deep emotional and psychological issues but zero personality. Any sensible woman would rightly run the other direction once even a little of his warped sense of pleasure came to the forefront.
At the time this movie came out, I worked with a superfan of the books and she claimed that the movie didn’t go as far with the sex and nudity as the book does. Based on what I saw, going too much further on the sex would have yielded an NC-17 rating. At that point, you risk alienating anyone who might set aside what remains of their decency and good taste. For those who may be curious, know that there is very little decency or good taste to be found in these reels.
Two years later, the first sequel was released. Fifty Shades Darker manages to be a lot like the second Twilight movie, in that very little happens, and you never really feel like the stakes are high for any of the characters. Christian woos Ana back into a relationship with him, he uses his money to prop up her seemingly perfect career, and they have lots and lots of sex. They should have called this one Fifty Shades Less Plot.
Just about everything in this film frustrated me as an outsider to the series. The script is once again secondary in importance, the lines are weak, and the chemistry between Johnson and Dornan just isn’t there. Christian finally opens up about his past trauma, both as an orphaned child and as a submissive sex object to a friend of his family in his youth. These revelations don’t come as any kind of psychological breakthrough or sudden realization that allows him to discard his inability to feel emotion. No, he expresses these things matter-of-factly, which suggests a guy as rich as he is should have been able to afford a pretty good therapist for what he sank into his playroom of pain. But just like her Twilight counterpart, Fifty Shades’s Ana doesn’t seem very adept at making rational decisions that will keep her out of harm’s way.
As with the second Twilight movie, there are a few things left hanging in the background that add some tension and suspense, but yield almost no payoff. Ana being stalked by one of Christian’s prior submissives resolves itself (again, run away!), but the effort to create ominous overtones surrounding Ana’s boss and Christian’s ex-dominant should reach a climax within the movie itself. It doesn’t, leaving the film with a very apparent case of middle-installment-syndrome. Why have a tightly-crafted duology when you can draw fans out for a trilogy? Unless you are here just for the sex scenes, which there are plenty of, Fifty Shades Darker just kind of teases you with incomplete storylines and fails to justify its own existence.
With less setup involved this time around, there is more time for the naughty bits. A few scenes certainly go further in content than the first film, but the inadequacies of the script, acting, and chemistry leave the sex scenes feeling far more gratuitous than boundary-pushing for cinema. Somehow, this one avoids an NC-17 rating, so its naughty bits aren’t quite as naughty as superfans may have hoped for.
By now the Twilight comparisons may be getting annoying, but they work so well! Anyway, just like the third Twilight movie, things actually happen in this third and final installment of the series. Unfortunately for those of us watching these movies without suspending disbelief into some dark corner of the galaxy, a little too much happens in short order, and a little too much of it happens as a result of poor decision-making by Ana. Some of the pacing issues may be due to this film having the shortest runtime of the series (a mixed blessing, if you want the truth), but most of it is due to the fact that the script (and presumably the source material) didn’t get any better.
The biggest insult to the audience, in my outsider opinion, is the way the film presents a flurry of potential situations that suggest there may finally be heightened stakes for the characters, but then wraps everything up in a fairy tale bow of a happy ending. I find it intellectually insulting to get so close to meaningful conflict only to be told that no lasting consequences are allowed to befall our protagonists. It robs the story of character growth and shows that it was always about the destination instead of the journey with this series.
While this film wraps up the series in a disappointing way, it still provides some semblance of catharsis, so it is a slight improvement on the second film. The acting and chemistry still leave a lot to be desired, but you’re almost used to it by now if you make this far in the series. Johnson and Dornan certainly seem more comfortable with (or resigned to?) the lines they have to deliver, so everyone should just take it for what it is and not overthink it. Too bad for them that I excel at overthinking.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It saddens me to think that future generations will know that something this tacky became a cultural footnote. Will Fifty Shades be the last notable phenomenon for books? I hope not. These movies, despite the gratuitous nudity and sex, turned out to be the unsexist thing I’ve watched since Showgirls, which is saying something. Impressionable viewers risk setting unreasonable expectations for pleasurable outcomes, as well as unhealthy boundaries for relationship dynamics. My wife and I certainly didn’t gain any new ideas from this journey, though we did lose a few hours of our time and some Redbox gift codes. If you ever find yourself curious to know if these movies live up to the hype (or are as bad as you’ve heard they are), just watch the first one and know that the series doesn’t improve upon a thinly veiled erotic thriller based on internet Twilight bondage fan fiction.
FINAL RATINGS:
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY: 2 out of 5
FIFTY SHADES DARKER: 1.5 out of 5
FIFTY SHADES FREED: 1.75 out of 5
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