Well, I saw the first screening of “Fifty Shades of Grey” this morning. Nothing like a little BDSM to dominate the breakfast hour!
This is the big-screen adaptation of the best-selling E.L. James novel, the story of young college student Anastasia who falls for kinky billionaire Christian Grey.
What I liked:
• The soundtrack contains “Beast of Burden” and a decent cover of “I’m On Fire.”
• Christian Grey has a very nice bathtub.
• Helicopters! And ultralights! Actually, I would have preferred to watch two hours of just helicopters and ultralights.
• 100% fewer scrunchies than in the book.
What I didn’t like:
• I thought I’d finally escaped the book’s crimes against punctuation. Then Ana and Christian began an e-mail exchange in the film, their messages popped up on screen, and there were all those dumb ellipses again. Come on …
• Christian Grey has an entire closet of grey ties. Who knew there were so many grey ties in the world? But what else would you expect from the CEO of Grey Enterprises, located at Grey House, where they apparently manufacture pencils that say “Grey”?
• The book’s stilted dialogue comes off even flatter in the film. Every time Christian Grey said, “Laters, baby,” I wanted to spank him. And not in a BDSM way. In a schoolmarm way. And not a sexy schoolmarm. Like, my fourth grade teacher at Our Lady of the Rosary who used to throw rulers at kids.
• Do college graduates always shake the hand of their commencement speaker? That’s weird, right?
• I knew going into the book that it was Twilight fan fiction, but somehow I compartmentalized it as a separate piece of work. On screen, however, this is the Twilightiest thing that has ever Twilighted. There was one scene in particular where I expected Christian Grey to sparkle like a Stephanie Meyer vampire.
• At one point, Christian leaps on top of Ana and bites a piece of her toast. (Yes, toast. That’s not a euphemism.) I got very angry about this on Ana’s behalf. The bondage and slapping is one thing. But eating the food out of this poor woman’s hand? Have some boundaries.
• Christian’s safe words are basically Homeland Security threat levels.
Major oversight:
• There’s absolutely no use of Devo “Whip It” anywhere. Not even ironically.
OK, but how was the sex?
• The sex was not very sexy. I have seen perfume commercials that are sexier than this movie. Heck, I’ve seen Swiffer commercials that are sexier. The sex here felt entirely clinical, and not at all inspiring, steamy or even interesting.
• Seriously. Old episodes of “Moonlighting” are sexier. Go watch those.
• What is the opposite of sexy? Because that’s what this was. It was as if I’d packed up my lady bits in a snowsuit and sent them off for a trek around Patagonia, that’s how distanced I felt from my body. I was dead inside for a good two hours.
• “The Thornbirds.” Way sexier.
• Has someone done “Fifty Shades of Greyskull” yet? Because I started writing that film in my head during the sex scenes.
• I’d say even “Die Hard” was sexier.
Overall:
• I thought it would be worse.