We red the books, we waited impatiently for the first casting announcements, we where surprised when Charlie Hunnam flunked out, we loved the trailers, the promotional posters, the short scenes we got and anticipated the movie unlike anything else this year....."50 shades of Grey" had us on our toes!!
Last week it was finally time for me to watch the movie...and without further waste of words, here it goes...my review and thoughts on the most anticipated movie of the year:
It starts like most romantic movies start: A somewhat hooded stranger runs in the rain, gets ready to go to work and in parallel scenes we see a young, kind of nerdy dressed girl getting ready for an interview she doen´t really want to go to. The introduction to the character of Anastasia Steel is look-wise what I expected from reading the books. Her nerdy, not really coordinated clothes and her ponytail was exactly how I pictured her. But then she started to talk and interact with her roommate Kate. All of the sudden Ana was more child-like, extremely shy then her character in the book and there was my first mini-disappointment! The movie does not waste any time to jump right into the interview scene at the "Grey House":
She falls into the room, just like in the book but there is no real awkwardness screaming from the screen like you would expect....in fact you have Christian Grey helping her up more like a knight in shining armor (okay in his case in a shining grey suit) then a dominant, mysterious, slightly annoyed CEO like we have in the books. And there it begins....the disablement of Christian Grey!
When you were expecting an mysterious, self-confident but at the same time vulnerable appearing man, you had to be more then disappointed! I know I was!
The interview scene itself was okay, we´ve got what we more or less expected: A shy, clumsy English literature student, that is overwhelmed by the situation that unfolds in front of her; and her counterpart a annoyed, but in the course of the interview more and more interested Mr. Grey. For most fans this was one of the key moments in the book, as well as in the movie and I thought they did okay. There was this feeling that you had about this guy, that there was more then is meeting the eye! I loved, that they kept the "Are you gay?" question by the way ;)
And after that it all went down hill for me......there was one cut after another, it felt like the scenes where not acted until the end , but I don´t think it was Dakota´s or Jamie´s fault, but more a script problem. I don´t want to go in to much detail about what happened in the movie itself, so I decided to let you know, what I liked and did not like about the main characters:
Anastasia Steel
Let´s start with my reaction to Dakota being cast as Ana....I think a lot of us had the same exact reaction to it...it was more like "Dakota who?!" then "Oh yeah, she was the first person I thought of when they announced a movie adaption.". I didn´t know her from anything she did before and with that said I was a blank piece of paper, when I was sitting in the movie theater. Ookay that´s not entirely true....after I saw the first trailer and the scene at Clayton´s I was kind of concerned, because to me she seemed more childish then extremely shy. And this is what I got out of the movie: My instinct was kind of right....Dakota really tried to give Ana her own spin and flair, but if you ask me, she totally missed the mark. Especially the "early" Ana in the books and the movie......I always thought of her as clumsy, shy and socially awkward (Bella everyone!!) and what I got was a childish, weird girl that was trapped in a 19-year old college students body!! What I did like about her was the obvious transition she experienced after meeting Mr. Grey. She was flirty, confident and stood up for herself. I especially enjoyed the scenes where she tried to put Christian in his place ("I think I´d like to hold on to my freedom a little while longer, thank you!" ;) ). Her inner transformation was very well expressed on her outside as well...her change of style was very obvious; Although if I remember correctly the clothes are provided by Christian Grey in the books (please correct me if I´m wrong) and that is not mentioned in the movie.
The Red Room scenes where acted pretty well (if you consider the script they had) and especially the very last scene in the Red Room of Pain was acted brilliantly (on an emotional level). Dakota was not shy to show everything and maybe this sounds really weird, but I think that is what those scenes needed. They needed a naked body, strapped on all of those different things....it would just not have been the same, if we would just have seen her boobs or something...okay that sounds REALLY weird. I hope you get what I mean...if not....just forgot you red it :D
My favourite scene acting wise for Ana was the very last one, beginning in the Red Room and ending in the elevator. You buy her pain, humiliation and confusion that she received from this guy that she is falling in love with. She can not wrap her mind around how he can experience pleasure out of such an act of pure violence. When she tells him to stay away from her and later tells Christian "No!" for the very first time I grinned, because this was what I was waiting for: A Ana that was alive and not a semi-romantic teenager that was looking for the love of her life. By the end of the movie she is a woman who has control of her own body and (kind of) her emotions.
Christian Grey:
First of all here is a little reminder of how I reacted when Jamie was cast as (the second) Christian Grey: http://lets-talk-tv.blogspot.de/2013/10/welcome-new-christian-grey-jamie-dornan.html
And now let´s see how he did:
The first thing you should know before I go any further is, that I am a big fan of Jamie Dornans work, especially in "The Fall" and I feel like I can rate very well, how he did portray Mr. Grey, comparing him to his other projects, where he played a similar character....okay let´s get to it then!
In my opinion Jamie is the one who lost the most by playing Mr. Grey. The script did not do this amazing character from E L James´books justice at all. When reading the first book, I pictured him as this super confident, kind of mysterious and vulnerable kind of guy, who you just knew was hiding something.....and with that I don´t just mean the Red Room, but his also his past. What I got was a guy, who seemed off his game.....he was confused by his first impression of Ana, when she was sitting in his office. To me he first felt more annoyed then interested....later on it was more about Ana then Christian. Okay, the books are written from her perspective, but we still get to know Christian pretty well, right?! I would have loved to have seen a scene, where he explains just a little bit, why he did not liked to be touched...what we got was him grabbing her hand and her just accepting that he does not like to be touched, I was hoping for this bad boy "You don´t have any idea what I´m thinking about right now" kind of vibe, that he portays so so soooo well as Paul Spector in "The Fall", but I did not get any of that in the movie :(
And this brings me to the biggest problem I have with "50 shades of Grey":
Let me start by telling you guys, that I am very aware of the fact, that the books started (and I think this is the most important word in this case "STARTED") as "Twilight" fan fiction but then developed into their own genre/ direction. In my opinion the trilogy had such a big potential to be made into very tasteful, fun movies, but instead of doing their own thing they decided to ride on the "Twilight" wave! And the worst thing for me is, that they did not even tried to hide that in the movies! The weird college student, that has no idea what´s out there for her.....the baaad bad mystery guy with his dark (and dangerous) secret.....the more then corny scenes when the two main characters made goo-goo eyes at each other,...for me it was just too much.
Don´t get me wrong, I liked the "Twilight" saga, but when I red the "50 shades" books, I felt I was in a more sophisticated, grown up world, that for me had NOTHING to do with twilight. When watching the trailers I thought, that the movie had the potential to be a very sophisticated movie, instead I felt like I was trapped in a very bad dramedy.
To top this very bad script off, they used the wrong songs in the wrong scenes......except everything Beyoncé.....you just can´t do anything wring with using her songs in any scene ;) For most of the movie I felt like I was being punk´d just because the music was so so sooo bad. Especially most of the stuff that happened in the Red Room was accompanied by music and tunes that, like a friend of mine put it very well "sounded like "The Flash" or any other superhero would appear any minute!".
A good movie means: good acting, good script, good screen writing, good camera movements, good cuts,.....and the list goes on and on. But in the case of "50 shades of Grey" not everyone was on their best game and this was noticeable in the movie.
When I left the theater I was more then disappointed and angry and felt bad for the actors, because I´m sure if they would have had the right items to work with their characters would have had more life in them. But with what they had they created a very bad, teenage-style romantic comedy/ dramedy that you forget as soon as you leave the theater. I can only hope, we´ll get new directors and/or screen writers for "Darker".
So this was my opinion about the movie....what did you think about it? What did you like, what did you hate? Did it do the book justice or did it miss the mark?
Let me know in the comment section! Let´s talk movies!! Let´s talk 50!
xoxo Nici
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