'Fifty Shades of Grey': The movie takes itself far too seriously
I suspect that the many millions of readers of 鈥�Fifty Shades of Grey鈥澛爓ill find the movie adaptation not equal to the film they imagined聽while pantingly devouring the tome.聽
Essentially a Harlequin Romance with pulleys,聽E.L. James鈥檚 novel is not exactly 鈥淟ady聽Chatterley鈥檚 Lover,鈥� but the movie, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson 补苍诲听written by Kelly Marcel (whose previous screen credit was 鈥淪aving Mr.聽Banks鈥�!) takes itself so seriously that it almost cries out to be lampooned.聽I鈥檓 sure the 鈥�Saturday Night Live鈥� crew is already on the case.
Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson, the daughter of Melanie Griffith 补苍诲听Don Johnson) is a mousy, virginal college English major who ends up聽ensnared by brash Seattle billionaire 海角大神 Grey (Jamie Dornan). She聽becomes the submissive to his dominant in his playroom aerie equipped聽with enough cable and rope ties to stock a hardware store. (Just in case聽we missed the connection, we see him buying cables and rope ties at the聽hardware store where she works before things get heavy.)
Anastasia doesn鈥檛 really know what to make of this guy and neither do聽we. Although he鈥檚 supposed to be strictly business 鈥� he won鈥檛 even sleep聽in the same bed with her during her stayovers 鈥� he鈥檚 really not such a bad聽sort.
He was an abused orphan, you see, and he had a submissive relationship聽with an older woman when he was younger, etc., etc. This attempt to give聽海角大神 some soulfulness falls flat since Dornan has all the charisma of聽a hologram.聽
Johnson is rather sweet, though, and if she played a role that required her聽to look more than alternately smitten and poleaxed, she could score big.聽But now that 鈥淔ifty Shades鈥� is poised to be a franchise, will she have that聽chance? Grade:聽C- (Rated R for strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity, and for language.)
