Directed by:
Sam Taylor-JohnsonScreenplay:
Kelly MarcelCinematography:
Seamus McGarveyComposer:
Danny ElfmanCast:
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Victor Rasuk, Luke Grimes, Marcia Gay Harden, Rita Ora, Max Martini, Callum Keith Rennie (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Fifty Shades of Grey, is the film adaptation of the bestselling book that has become a global phenomenon. Since its release, the "Fifty Shades" trilogy has been translated into 51 languages worldwide and sold more than 100 million copies in e-book and print—making it one of the biggest and fastest-selling book series ever. (Universal Pictures US)
(more)Videos (17)
Reviews (16)
A movie that starts five minutes before the end credits with the only scene that evokes any emotion. The rest is too Harlequin romance-like and shallow to engage viewers and allow them to relate to the characters in any way or to have any interest in observing the evolution of their “relationship”. Dakota Johnson’s acting is OK and natural. Jamie Dornan is not natural and his acting is reminiscent of Ben Affleck in Armageddon. And everything falls apart with him because his complicated and wannabe opaque character is supposed to be the core of the film, just as Sharon Stone was the core of Basic Instinct. Or at least I hope that the book is based on psychology and not flying helicopters and cars given as gifts. The contract negotiation scene shows the only spark of the director’s creativity in this gray, gray void. But it is irrelevant to the film as a whole. The most characteristic scene here is the one involving playing the piano after the loss of virginity… Personally, I was pleased by the answer “Me” to the question “And what will I get out of it?” Because I, ever impatient, never knew how to answer this particular question and always opted to move on to find a different, more experienced candidate.
()
A film with no plot, no emotion, and no attempt to evoke sympathy for characters that are never plunged into their controversial intimate relationship deeper than the writing of a superficial sexual contract, and only fool around a few times in a cool luxury mansion without any hint of an erotic atmosphere. This should have been given to Stanley Kubrick, whose Eyes Wide Shut, with its creative work with mise-en-scène and precise direction of the "horny" actors, kicks this pointless bullshit right in the ass. A pointless film without a single memorable scene or creative visual idea that would at least somehow spice up and highlight the routine action on the screen. Two stars solely for Dakota, whose acting is believable, and for two nicely done erotic scenes, which, if nothing else, at least aptly characterised the entire formal level of the film: something between an attempted artistic look at NOTHING and a superficial presentation of SOMETHING, which is only marginally glimpsed and will catch on at most as a useful tool for students at a film high school. 40%
()
”What are butt plugs?” I haven't read the book and I don’t know what the sequel is about, nor am I an expert on female sexuality. Therefore, please take this review only as the comments of a lay observer who would, however, give this film a two-star rating regardless of what he has or has not learned from it. ___ Fifty Shades of Grey exposes the rules of traditional romantic dramas and pushes them to the extreme with an anticlimactic story of the awakening of a naïve romantic who discovers, in addition to her own identity, the male-dominated world of market capitalism (“Welcome to my world”). With his cold-blooded business approach and acquisitiveness, Grey is the perfect prototype of a man as capitalist, convinced of his own superiority. He understands relationships as business transactions, prior to which it is necessary to negotiate the most favourable conditions (“I don’t do romance”). He buys and Ana sells, both literally and figuratively. He showers a woman with expensive gifts and “fucks her hard”, in exchange for which she humbly submits to him. He manages to convince her that freedom is gained through giving up responsibility. If a woman does not respect his rules, she will be punished. At the same time, the scenes with his domineering mother and memories of his relationship with his partner, who has subjugated him, indicate that Grey’s need for eroticised domination stems from his fear of women or rather loss of control over what makes him a man according to the current social order. ___ In her inexperience, Ana guilelessly accepts the rules of a world in which male pleasure takes priority over all else, in which a feeling of humiliation is determinative for the woman, in which the man is active (not only in sex) and the woman is passive. She does not know any other rules and for the purposes of the wonderfully straightforward narrative with black-and-white characters, it is not even desirable that she would know them. For Ana, the opportunity to submit to a man is a privilege for which she rewards the man in question by preparing breakfast (the way in which Ana takes on her role as a homemaker, as if it’s a matter of course, can also be perceived as the fulfilment of a male fantasy). It is only gradually, as she goes down the S&M rabbit hole, that she discovers who she really is (through sexuality, among other things) and begins to understand that being a woman does not mean being a tool for others, sharing everything (including a sandwich prepared for dinner) and becoming invisible. She slowly brings her own rules into Grey’s world along with her own ways of getting pleasure (“It's you that’s changing me”). ___ Despite that, the relationship remains unfulfilled according to the principles of melodrama. Peculiarly, the reason that he and she do not end up happily in each other’s arms is the knowledge of what the man really desires and what it means to be a woman. Fulfilling Grey’s fantasies – and thus playing the role that he requires from her – does not give Ana satisfaction. I would therefore like to believe that the blandness of the relatively tame and too brief erotic scenes (with music that kills any excitement) was the filmmaker’s intention. The film is at its sexiest when the characters only talk about sex and the story remains in the realm of the unrealised fantasies of the female protagonist, who thus controls the narrative and has the man under her power for at least a moment (the conversation over the contract). Conversely, Ana loses all of her power during the erotic games played out according to Grey’s fantasies. From a certain perspective, the empty-seeming ending and the lack of physical eroticism (in terms of both duration and explicitness) are not a mistake, but an attempt to undermine the androcentric vision and understanding of the world as it is represented by dozens of other romantic films about invisible women and dominant men (to go even further beyond the limits of valid interpretation, the discontinuity of the editing and the jumps during the scene involving Ana’s first sexual encounter could also be read as an expression of her personal “paradigmatic break”). 50%
()
(less)
(more)
When I stumble upon something every few years every time I enter a bookstore, sooner or later it starts to haunt me. Best of all in the form of a predictable romance, which transforms into something paradoxically embarrassing in approximately the third act. Paradoxical for the reason that anyone who has ever even marginally experimented with intimate play probably covers more in an evening than the entire contract of Mr. Grey contains. And embarrassing purely because the main heroine is the impossible Ana played by the equally impossible Dakota Johnson. On the other hand, Jamie Dornan, no matter how unplayable his role is, can recite all the madness that has been crammed into the script from the original with a fierce expression and surprising dignity. It just saddens me how much hype is and will be surrounding such a fatally unnecessary spectacle. If there really was only that Xbox lying in Christian's playroom, we would all be much better off.
()
I didn't have any preconceptions and I thought that it couldn't be as bad as they say. But it was. Two hours of shallow boredom revolving around a theme that tells me absolutely nothing and after watching it hasn't started to say anything and won't start to, plus a rather unsympathetic dummy in the lead role and his handsome, but extremely bloodless partner. However, on the other hand, I understand that Fifty Shades has found its audience and will continue to do so, because many people seem to crave such adventures. So please, go ahead, I won't disturb you in this game room.
()
Ads