After over a year of casting speculation, teaser trailers, impressive soundtrack releases and even a Lego reenactment of the complete trailer, the Fifty Shades of Grey film has finally hit cinemas around the globe and, after being witness to the reveal at the Sydney premiere last night, we are here to share a little of what you can expect to see…
By Chloe Schneider
Full disclosure (that is the Fifty Shades spirit, after all): we never got through the book. Anastasia’s self-talk was too much to bear and the sex scenes felt a little repetitive at best. So, as we’re sure you can imagine, we walked in to see Mr Grey a little hesitant.
Thankfully, we walked out not exactly overwhelmed with praise, but definitely relieved to be able to report the Fifty Shades film is exponentially more tolerable than the novel.
The acting won’t win stars Dakota Johnson or Jamie Dornan any awards, but they do have just enough chemistry to pull it off and Johnson does a fairly good job at portraying Ana’s naiveté without overplaying it too much.
Although much of the dialogue is clichéd (Ana’s repetitive “why won’t you let me in?”, Grey’s, “I don’t make love, I f**k hard”) and occasionally produces unintentional laugh-out-loud moments, there are some refreshingly self-aware moments that have us laughing with the film rather than at it.
As for the sex; there is a lot of it — 20 minutes out of 100 is devoted to sex scenes — but that it doesn’t come close to Barnado Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, which devoted 41 out of 75 minutes. The nature of all that bonking is definitely more out-of-the-box and bondage-clad than your average kitchen romp, but the slick production, deliberate acting, and, for lack of a better word, Hollywood-ness of it all ensures no ground is broken.
Were we to offer Director Sam Taylor-Wood one piece of advice it would be to cut that two-hour running time down to ninety minutes max. In our opinion, Ana and Christian outstay their welcome and even shaving off two or three of those exaggerated lip bites could have surely saved us five minutes.
And it seems many of the US reviewers have felt the same kind of relief that, while no masterpiece, the film isn’t complete trash….
New York Post’s Sara Stewart said, ““Gone are the truly dreadful aspects of the book, and the biggest surprise may be that Ana and Christian have developed senses of humour.
Still, the film never pretends to be other than what it really is: soft-core porn for the ladies, diluted with an R rating.”
Time Out New York’s David Enrlich said, “As this is the first instalment of an epic trilogy, how much there is beneath the surface remains to be seen, but Taylor-Johnson seems genuinely interested in finding out. Fifty Shades may not make you come, but you’ll still be glad you went.”
Variety’s Justin Chang said, “Not exactly whip-smart, but this hotly anticipated bondage-porn romance is in many ways a significant improvement on (the) novel,’’
Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-91/2 Weeks is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation — edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age.”
Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson hilarious said, “Free of full-frontal nudity and excessive thrusting and, well, orgasming as this movie is, it never gets to that envelope-pushing place. Which I suspect will disappoint many people, understandably. Oh well. Maybe I’m a sex-shaming prude, but I didn’t mind getting the less explicit version, because the movie is at its best when it keeps things swift and light.”
Steam-O-Meter: Fifty Shades By the Numbers
10 movie studios bid for the rights for a film adaptation of the book
20 of the total 125 minutes feature sex scenes
16 naked bums appear in the film
9 lips being bitten
29 shots of Dakota Thompson’s breasts throughout the film
12 shirtless moments
4 lines in Rita Ora’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performance
3.4/10 film’s rating on IMDB (at time of writing)
8% increase in sales of sex-themed products since publication
40% increase in sex toy injuries in the US following the publication of the first book
We went to the 50 Shades premiere thanks to our friends at OPI who are celebrating the release with a collection of 50 Shades inspired nail polishes.
Numbers references: Telegraph.co.uk, News.com.au
