Subbing for her sick roommate, mousy college student with a porn name Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who is so innocent she doesn’t know what a butt plug is, goes to Seattle to interview billionaire business guy douchebag Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). Shortly after the interview, Grey starts stalking Anastasia at the hardware store where she works, but that’s OK because he has billions of dollars and looks like the result of a night of passionate lovemaking between Ryan Phillippe and Eric Bana. His psychotic courtship eventually winds up with Anastasia becoming his prospective bondage slave. He offers her a formal contract that, if she signs, will allow him to be the dominant and her the submissive in a kinky sex relationship that will involve spanking, humiliation, nipple clips and eating toast in bed. The sex scenes eventually happen and, if anything, they provide some good, hearty laughs. While the screenplay doesn’t explain much, Grey’s sexual proclivities and needs to abuse his mate have something to do with his being a crack baby. So I guess we’re supposed to feel sorry for him when he’s torturing his girlfriend because his mom was a stupid crack whore. Fair enough. When people aren’t having sex in this movie, which is quite often as things turn out, they talk in a somber, slow, irritatingly elongated manner. Everybody in this movie is a mopey, sodden sop. I love Seattle, but watching how residents behave and communicate in this movie makes me never want to visit the city again, even if the Mariners make the playoffs.
Fifty Shades of Grey
