50 Shades of Grey (MA)
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan
THINGS the movies have taught me – you can speed-read the book, but you can’t fast forward through a film in a cinema.
For women of a certain age, the long wait is over … and the ladies are flocking to their local multiplex for the girly catnip that is 50 Shades of Grey … and a choc-top or two.
As possibly the only man in Australia to see the film – and probably the one man on the planet to have read the book – I feel uniquely qualified to comment.
As a comedy, this is no mere tale of boy meets girl, boy whips girl, boy loses girl – oooooh no it’s not.
Witness Mr Grey himself, Jamie Dornan, previously known for playing the much more lovable character of a serial killer in “The Fall”.
So thin, so fussy, so neat, and with a truly ridiculous haircut and abs of iron, it’s hard to believe Grey is straight, let alone a dreamboat.
He is aloof, distant, commanding, confident, intimidating. She – Dakota Johnson playing Anastasia Steele – is mousey, shy, cardigan-wearing, intimidated and unworthy.
Can she tame this proud beast? So far, so Mills and Boon.
It is immediately apparent that this film bears no resemblance to reality in any way, shape or form.
Enter an utter uncontrolled frenzy of lip-biting by Anastasia’s character, until one is unsure whether she is in need of the world’s biggest chapstick, or even first aid.
Introduced to Grey’s ‘playroom’, she asks naively: “Like where you keep your Xbox and stuff?”
“This is my flogger,” Grey replies helpfully.
It soon emerges that Grey owns a “red room of pain” and prefers chains and whips to chips and dips.
I yawned during the whipping scene.
Following the long-held rule that men look at women and women also look at women, Anastasia’s many charms are well on display, but Grey beyond his chiselled abs remains an undiscovered country.
Alleged domestic violence overtones remained obscure to me: the lip-chomping Anastasia has all the power in this relationship.
Wildly amusing and equally wildly unerotic, and with a distinct lack of gunfights, car chases, explosions and flames, 50 Shades of Grey is extraordinary in its absolute ordinariness.
It will make, and is making, an absolute motza.
– Jason Beck
