Tonight in England the much anticipated film 50 Shades of Grey came out in cinemas country wide. The opening is well timed, making 50 Shades of Grey Valentines Day number one choice for cinema dates. Well if you’ve missed spanking in British Porn you can now go see it on the big screen, as this film is rated 18 for a reason.
If you haven’t heard of 50 Shades of Grey, you must either live in a mountain hole or not talk to anyone of the female population. Since the book’s release in 2011, sex toy purchases have skyrocketed in the UK and enough injuries have been sustained for the London fire department to have a “Grey Alert” ready this weekend in anticipation of people getting stuck in handcuffs and cock rings.
The film does a great job of summarising what the book teaches you, which can be condensed into these two fail safe rules for dating/relationships/sex/life.
- Be attractive.
- Be a billionaire.
There has been a lot of controversy about the books, mostly accusations that the main character is a controlling, emotionally abusive and manipulative stalker, who retaliates to the word “no” with “if you struggle, I’ll tie your feet, and if you make a noise, I will gag you.”
The film however discreetly drops these scenes and instead shows the story of a strong willed girl who forces a guy who just wants sex to go on dates with her. Then she leaves him when she realises that she loves him but they want different things.
If you take away the helicopter rides, the initial gifts of a new car and a new laptop, his stalking tendencies and his unrealistic BDSM lifestyle, then you have actually have a very realistic romance story.
The film is obviously high budget, and on paper has all the elements of a sexy and romantic movie experience.
- Two Hollywood level attractive main characters
- Dakota Johnson’s nipples being erect in several scenes
- Dakota Johnson being tied up with erect nipples in several scenes
- James Dornan taking off Dakota Johnson’s lace panties and spanking her
- Sex standing up
- Sex from behind
- Hair pulling whilst having sex from behind
- Sex on a bed
- Kissing in an elevator
- Bondage
Yet despite all the artful nudity and that one scene where you almost see Jame’s Dornan’s penis, I was simply not excited by the film. Instead there were moment’s I cringed at Dakota Johnson’s moans of sexual delight.
It looked faked. It sounded fake. I don’t know if it’s because I work in the porn industry myself, but the sex scenes failed to be “risqué” enough to cause exciting controversy, and yet were too in-your-face to be ignored. These scenes were clearly meant to be a selling point and also a climax to the film.
In the same way Anastasia Steel clearly did not reach climax, neither did the film. The fact of the matter is, most people who are going to see this film have probably had sex at some point in their lives. The sex shown in 50 Shades of Grey is too unrealistic to be arousing.
Just to name a few points I had issues with
- Anastasia Steele feels no pain when Christian Grey takes her virginity, with what seems to be minimal foreplay and also very little planning. He basically says “I wasn’t planning on having sex with you tonight, but since you’ve just told me you’re a virgin I’m going to take you to bed right now and “fix it”.”
- Anastasia Steele gasps and moans at every single light touch that happens, as if she’s about to climax every time. This isn’t erotic, rather, by having such a large reaction to a kiss on her thigh, it makes the scene where there’s actual penetrative sex seem dull – as if the pleasure meter didn’t actually go up at all.
- Christian Grey makes no noise whatsoever. If I were blindfolded like Anastasia was, I would honestly question whether or not he was still in the room.
So if we take the sex scenes away, what’s left of the film? Very little to be honest. There is almost no character development, a lot of contradictory plot development in the rare moments that plot development actually happened.
But I don’t blame the film for that. The book itself had very little in way of plot, and the film, after taking away controversial scenes in the book, had very little to work with. What they did have, they did with style. Sadly that wasn’t enough to make up for lack of raw material.
Honestly, I want to say this wasn’t a bad film. Because I think that they really tried, I think the actors tried, I think the director tried and I think that they did the best they could have. But a 50 Shades of Grey valentines day date will leave you disappointed.