Fifty Shades of Grey: The Movie scores a twenty-five per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Early indications suggest this is twenty-five per cent higher than initial predictions. Many critics have praised the film for not being the book, and this appears to be the movie's main strength. The major failings of Fifty Shades of Grey: The Novel were found in the writing of E.L. James. The book was long, the plotting was tedious, the sex scenes were gratuitous, the inner goddess interior monologues were infuriating and the lengthy descriptions of the hero's perfection exhausted the reader's patience. The new and exciting medium of film alleviates these problems by swapping prose for images. Who needs to hear how beautiful Christian Grey is when director Sam Taylor-Wood fills her frames with Jamie Dornan staring intensely at the middle distance, looking like all handsome? Who needs to be told of Grey's opulence when behind Jamie Dornan is proof in the form of product placement? Who needs to know what Ana Steele thinks? The screenplay pares down James' five-hundred pages into two hours of moving pictures, thus removing a huge number of offending words. The remaining offending words are still offensive, but there are fewer of them.
In her review for Sight & Sound, Jane Giles begins by listing classic romances. 'Like Cinderella, Bluebeard, Pygmalion or Twilight, (Fifty Shades) is a romantic fantasy and a fairytale, a story of sexual awakening in which the innocent heroine’s inherent strengths allow her to battle monsters, in this case capitalism and a male sexuality twice-warped by childhood abuse and adolescent manipulation.' The critics have joined the filmmakers in the psychological nightmare that is attempting to find subtext in softcore titillation. Capitalism is a monster humankind cannot fight with naïve virgins alone. Still, Ana doesn't so much fight oppressive economic models as she does admire all that they buy and then marries a billionaire for a life of financial comfort. The main antagonist Ana faces, besides the crazed stalkers, ex-girlfriends, parents, college students and mechanical malfunction, is male sexuality. She does this with a straightforward ease most becoming of how women behave in erotic novels. She asks Christian to change, which he does because the narrative requires it. Then she asks him to change again, in much the same way as before, except this time he refuses, again because the narrative requires it.
Critics have noted that the filmmakers were constricted by the source material and the author's sway over all elements of the process. Giles admits, 'One suspects that Taylor-Johnson was never free even to push at the edges of sexual representation, and the film’s lack of explicit imagery and grit is one of its disappointments.' Following a similar conclusion Margot Harrison at Seven Days noted, 'A more adventurous writer and director could have turned this twisted fairy tale into a full-fledged surreal fantasy, using its inconsistencies as assets. But James, who wielded considerable control over this production, surely wouldn't have given her OK to such escapades.' E.L. James is not solely to blame for wanting the film adaptation of her novel to have similarities with what she wrote. Audiences, too, were keen that their favourite scenes were loyally translated to the big screen. Had a writing team featuring Kelly Marcel, Patrick Marber and James herself deviated from the source material, changing characters or cutting those long, redundant sequences that readers loved, the disapproval of the viewers would have been felt in box-office figures. Fortunately, Taylor-Wood stayed true to that classic scene where Ana sits at her new laptop and tries to think of something clever to write.
Speaking of which, for there to be cheap sex there must be alternatives in terms of price; expensive, modest, reasonable, bargain. There are possibly others. Fifty Shades of Grey falls across categories. On the one hand, it is sleazy exploitation, but that hand is gloved in decadence as designed by Armani. This presents an unobtainable vision of beauty and affluence to an audience just wanting to be aroused by an acceptable pornographification of status. To the uninitiated Fifty Shades may appear to be a subversive twist on the fairytale romance between prince and pauper, but it instead belongs to the Solicititilation tales of Mills & Boon. Ana refuses money from her lover-cum-owner, and his extravagant gifts are considered loans. She does not want Christian for his wealth and life of luxury, preferring to pretend there is her ideal man behind the emotional sterility and violence. His violence is not real violence, of course, but rather the fluffy kind of subjugation that is both pleasurable and sensitively-undertaken. Ana concludes her story victorious, married to the billionaire and with all the beauty and affluence that entails.
When an example of female empowerment is offered, where better to look for insightful critique than Playboy magazine? Stephen Rebello has few kind words. 'This gift to the world of schlock cinema tries valiantly to elevate the Twilight fan fiction-inspired source material to a level of melodrama worthy of ‘60s stuff like A Summer Place or Strangers When We Meet. It sometimes succeeds but just as often it sloshes around in a bubble bath of high camp a la 9 ½ Weeks.' Despite this less than impressive beginning, Rebello does admit that there are positives to be found in the glossy, fetishistic look of a perfume commercial, the film's lurid convictions and fifteen minutes of sex scenes so timid no one should be forced to shift awkwardly in front of confounded grandparents. 'The plot is as simple as its sexual politics are muddled,' he adds. Readers might have assumed this from their memories of reading, but fans of Romance fiction who missed Fifty Shades will assume this as well.
As to be expected from a Playboy article, the review ends a criticism that could just as easily be thrown back in its direction, with the sexes reversed. 'It floats in a female wish-fulfilment world of ridiculously handsome, chiseled dudes so engorged with desire that they whisk away average-looking virgins on their self-piloted private jets to their lavish penthouses featuring walk-in closets the size of Texas, drawers lined with an endless assortment of grey silk ties and, just for fun, a secret torture chamber.' Nothing says female wish-fulfilment quite like a lack of colour in decorative accessories, and yet, as we all know, there are only fifty shades of grey tie and that hardly constitutes an endless assortment. Despite this oversight, Rebello's review is consistent with those who have felt the need to weigh in on Fifty Shades. The overwhelming critical disdain was written resignedly, as nothing would stop the money train from pulling into every station. The Turner prize-winning director, the Academy Award-nominated co-scribe and the Oscar-winning producers combined their high-brow credentials for the veneer of artistic credibility, but their movie was always going to escape the box-office poison of expert opinion.
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