Fifty Shades of Gray (Estados Unidos, 2015)
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson. Screenplay: Kelly Marcel, E.L. Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle. Producers: Jeb Brody, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, E.L. James. Distributor: Focus Features. Duration: 125 minutes.
Are they planning on making two more movies about this story? This was the first question that came to my mind after watching (or enduring?) 50 Shades of Grey.
A few months ago, after succumbing to the social pressure that a bestseller of this caliber causes
I finally read the book, hoping that some chance of fate would surprise me and prove it. prove I was wrong. But not. Actually, I was right: the book is terrible. The problem was that they sold it to me as a book that broke boundaries, that was completely revolutionary, that changed women’s literature. Apparently I’m a victim of the very good fame, because the truth is that it’s nothing special to me. The characters are very flat, and not only that, they are too clearly stereotyped and unimaginative to the point of being boring. She (Anastasia Steele) is beautiful, slim, somewhat feminine, and a virgin. He (Christian Gray) is a real millionaire, he is 27 years old, blonde with bright eyes, very hot and has a perverse personality, which an inexperienced person like Anastasia Steele is perfect for he. But he can’t love…so she changes him and finds a way to get into that metal shell
So not only is it not revolutionary, it’s more of the same
The only thing that makes it different is the sexual part, which in any case helps reinforce sexist stereotypes about women serving men’s pleasure. Without this part, it would have been a very boring and not even well-written love story.
Having said all that, as you will see, I sat down to watch the movie with a head full of prejudice. And once again, I discovered that I was right. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (who has one more feature film under his belt called Nowhere Boy), the adaptation of 50 Shades of Gray leaves a lot to be desired. The only interesting thing about the movie is the porn and it goes on forever. To see something interesting, you have to watch an hour and fifteen minutes of close-ups on the faces of Dakota Johnson (who plays Anastasia) and Jamie Dornan (who plays Christian Grey) as she bites her lip and he squints to express something like passion. , what do I know? I can’t tell you, because the acting is so forced that sometimes you don’t understand what the character is trying to feel.
As for the rest of the movie: Do you see all the clichés that exist in romantic movies? The eternal looks exchanged, the passionate kisses in the elevator, the conversations in which they swore eternal love, etc.? Well, 50 Shades of Gray takes all these clichés to the next level. They are so numerous and poorly executed that they are boring (if you bite your lip again, I will scream!). But anyway, after all this, Christian Gray finally shows her his playroom, where he has sadistic elements. And you expect to see action. But once again we were disappointed: the set was poor and the music was terrible. This is really unfortunate because the scorer is Danny Elfman (the guy who writes the music for all of Tim Burton’s movies).
In short, two hours of romantic nonsense that is no different from any other romantic movie. Life is too short to watch (or read) Fifty Shades of Grey.
