Anastasia "Ana" Steele makes an interview with Christian Grey, a 27-year old billionaire in his office. Even though the interview is formal, there are sparks between them. Christian visits Ana while she is working at a hardware store. One night, Ana becomes drunk at a bar, so Christian carries her to sleep over at his hotel room. Ana admits she is still a virgin, and the two have sex together. Christian then reveals his "pleasure room" to her, admitting he is a sadomasochist. He offers her a contract for his hard-core way of sex, but Ana is reluctant to sign it. To demonstrate what she could expect, Christian ties Ana up in his room and has sex. Finally, he shows what really turns him on: he slaps Ana's butt with a belt six times. Revolted by his pleasure with pain, Ana leaves his home.
"Fifty Shades of Grey" is notable for being the first hard-core sadomasochist erotic film in American mainstream cinema. If that bizarre feature were to be removed, it would be a pale, unmemorable soap opera love story. It starts off as a harmless love story between Ana and Christian, until more and more of his perverted side is shown, especially in the second half of the film, where he ties up and even beats Ana to get aroused. Both Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan are good actors, but are "reduced" in this narrowed down story with minimum, truncated character development. Ana seems to be a nice person, and thus it is not clear why she is attracted to Christian, who can not connect to anybody. When he says "I don't do romance", and demands that she signs a confidentiality agreement (!) just to have a relationship with him, one would expect that a large question mark would appear over Ana's head and that she would run away from these kind of alarm signs. He refuses to have an emotional side, or to show any kind of kindness to her, and thus their relationship never seems to get off the ground. It seems that "Shades" appeals to the 'gold-digger' and 'sugar-daddy' instincts of some women, who are willing to go a long way provided their boyfriend is rich and spoils them with gifts. Instead of an ending, the film is "interrupted" and leaves several plot points unfinished. Audiences who are turned on by BDSM might be excited, but others will just be turned off by this depiction of "contaminated" sexuality.
Grade:+
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