Directed by:
Sam Taylor-JohnsonScreenplay:
Kelly MarcelCinematography:
Seamus McGarveyComposer:
Danny ElfmanCast:
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Victor Rasuk, Luke Grimes, Marcia Gay Harden, Rita Ora, Max Martini, Callum Keith Rennie (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Fifty Shades of Grey, is the film adaptation of the bestselling book that has become a global phenomenon. Since its release, the "Fifty Shades" trilogy has been translated into 51 languages worldwide and sold more than 100 million copies in e-book and print—making it one of the biggest and fastest-selling book series ever. (Universal Pictures US)
(more)Reviews (16)
Perfectly managed advertising campaign. I feel sorry for all the people who went to see this, be it voluntarily or involuntarily. The movie is categorized as drama and romance, but it’s neither. In fact, I have absolutely no idea where to place this cinematic diarrhea. It's not dramatic enough for a drama. Romance can be found maybe in the first 15 minutes, but first I would have to undergo a full-frontal lobotomy to make it through the dialogues which are as intriguing as the Malaysia Airlines MH370 aircraft’s landing is smooth. Alright, a comedy? Maybe a few people had some good laughs, even if only ironically, but I sure didn't. Damn, there must be a genre for this. Erotica? For those few minutes? No. Soap opera? I guess this genre is the most fitting due to all those relationship dilemmas like: ‘I want him, he wants me, I have to change for him, he has to change for me, I don't want to change, he won't change, but I love him and he loves me, but we see everything so differently and....’ what? Jesus, what is this all about? No emotion, thrill, fun, suspense, excitement, Fifty Shades of Grey just fades away into nothing.
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A movie that starts five minutes before the end credits with the only scene that evokes any emotion. The rest is too Harlequin romance-like and shallow to engage viewers and allow them to relate to the characters in any way or to have any interest in observing the evolution of their “relationship”. Dakota Johnson’s acting is OK and natural. Jamie Dornan is not natural and his acting is reminiscent of Ben Affleck in Armageddon. And everything falls apart with him because his complicated and wannabe opaque character is supposed to be the core of the film, just as Sharon Stone was the core of Basic Instinct. Or at least I hope that the book is based on psychology and not flying helicopters and cars given as gifts. The contract negotiation scene shows the only spark of the director’s creativity in this gray, gray void. But it is irrelevant to the film as a whole. The most characteristic scene here is the one involving playing the piano after the loss of virginity… Personally, I was pleased by the answer “Me” to the question “And what will I get out of it?” Because I, ever impatient, never knew how to answer this particular question and always opted to move on to find a different, more experienced candidate.
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”What are butt plugs?” I haven't read the book and I don’t know what the sequel is about, nor am I an expert on female sexuality. Therefore, please take this review only as the comments of a lay observer who would, however, give this film a two-star rating regardless of what he has or has not learned from it. ___ Fifty Shades of Grey exposes the rules of traditional romantic dramas and pushes them to the extreme with an anticlimactic story of the awakening of a naïve romantic who discovers, in addition to her own identity, the male-dominated world of market capitalism (“Welcome to my world”). With his cold-blooded business approach and acquisitiveness, Grey is the perfect prototype of a man as capitalist, convinced of his own superiority. He understands relationships as business transactions, prior to which it is necessary to negotiate the most favourable conditions (“I don’t do romance”). He buys and Ana sells, both literally and figuratively. He showers a woman with expensive gifts and “fucks her hard”, in exchange for which she humbly submits to him. He manages to convince her that freedom is gained through giving up responsibility. If a woman does not respect his rules, she will be punished. At the same time, the scenes with his domineering mother and memories of his relationship with his partner, who has subjugated him, indicate that Grey’s need for eroticised domination stems from his fear of women or rather loss of control over what makes him a man according to the current social order. ___ In her inexperience, Ana guilelessly accepts the rules of a world in which male pleasure takes priority over all else, in which a feeling of humiliation is determinative for the woman, in which the man is active (not only in sex) and the woman is passive. She does not know any other rules and for the purposes of the wonderfully straightforward narrative with black-and-white characters, it is not even desirable that she would know them. For Ana, the opportunity to submit to a man is a privilege for which she rewards the man in question by preparing breakfast (the way in which Ana takes on her role as a homemaker, as if it’s a matter of course, can also be perceived as the fulfilment of a male fantasy). It is only gradually, as she goes down the S&M rabbit hole, that she discovers who she really is (through sexuality, among other things) and begins to understand that being a woman does not mean being a tool for others, sharing everything (including a sandwich prepared for dinner) and becoming invisible. She slowly brings her own rules into Grey’s world along with her own ways of getting pleasure (“It's you that’s changing me”). ___ Despite that, the relationship remains unfulfilled according to the principles of melodrama. Peculiarly, the reason that he and she do not end up happily in each other’s arms is the knowledge of what the man really desires and what it means to be a woman. Fulfilling Grey’s fantasies – and thus playing the role that he requires from her – does not give Ana satisfaction. I would therefore like to believe that the blandness of the relatively tame and too brief erotic scenes (with music that kills any excitement) was the filmmaker’s intention. The film is at its sexiest when the characters only talk about sex and the story remains in the realm of the unrealised fantasies of the female protagonist, who thus controls the narrative and has the man under her power for at least a moment (the conversation over the contract). Conversely, Ana loses all of her power during the erotic games played out according to Grey’s fantasies. From a certain perspective, the empty-seeming ending and the lack of physical eroticism (in terms of both duration and explicitness) are not a mistake, but an attempt to undermine the androcentric vision and understanding of the world as it is represented by dozens of other romantic films about invisible women and dominant men (to go even further beyond the limits of valid interpretation, the discontinuity of the editing and the jumps during the scene involving Ana’s first sexual encounter could also be read as an expression of her personal “paradigmatic break”). 50%
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I can’t shake the feeling that marketing-wise, this is the most lucrative slushy romance I’ve ever seen. And I only watched it because I expected some sort of a breakthrough in the world cinematography. But nothing happened except for one strange relationship that doesn’t really show us anything; just a bit of whipping and one very modest torture chamber. Dorian Gray might be a psycho, but he still acts rationally and so nothing truly bad happens to Dakota. The ending was weak because I know that Dakota’s dominance won’t last very long.
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When I stumble upon something every few years every time I enter a bookstore, sooner or later it starts to haunt me. Best of all in the form of a predictable romance, which transforms into something paradoxically embarrassing in approximately the third act. Paradoxical for the reason that anyone who has ever even marginally experimented with intimate play probably covers more in an evening than the entire contract of Mr. Grey contains. And embarrassing purely because the main heroine is the impossible Ana played by the equally impossible Dakota Johnson. On the other hand, Jamie Dornan, no matter how unplayable his role is, can recite all the madness that has been crammed into the script from the original with a fierce expression and surprising dignity. It just saddens me how much hype is and will be surrounding such a fatally unnecessary spectacle. If there really was only that Xbox lying in Christian's playroom, we would all be much better off.
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Music good, cinematography awkward, equally awkward performance by Jamie Dornan. Dakota was still okay, but nothing great under the sun. The beginning was really a mouthful, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it, but I endured simply because of masochism. An erotic film that tries to have some psychological overtones, but that gets pretty lost in the superficial beginning and middle (god I was getting hysterical fits of laughter at some of the dialogue and "thrills"). Basically, it only starts to get interesting at the end, when Ana realizes that she's not very happy, she starts to have her doubts about the whole sex trip. Despite all the stupid lines, and a couple of fairly well played verbal exchanges, it wasn't the horrible movie I thought it would be in the end.
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So I watched it and surprising I don’t have the urge to trash this modern romance. In the end, this dumb (not as cute as in the Transformers) and senseless story comes to some conclusion. Quite surprising, if you didn’t watch the spoilers. It doesn’t even completely slip into an outright American Pie. In terms of actors, this a terrible bunch of unlikeable people, the only one who is sort of nice is (that pathologically disturbed) Mr. Grey. My girlfriend fell asleep after the first kiss and I dropped of when I thought that it must already be the end (about 10 minutes before it really ended). I finished watching on Labor Day. Everything taken care of now. P.S.: Elfman’s music was very pleasant.
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A popular little film serving as an illustration for a popular little book. I'm kind of curious if it will be as famous as Nine 1/2 Weeks or Basic Instinct years from now. But I think the whole trend is more likely to be forgotten.
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Pretty Woman 2. Over time, everyone waves their hand over it as shallow and often predictable when it captures the current times so accurately, with a hint of irresistible glamour. But now it's trendy to complain about how uninteresting the erotica is and how bland the acting is, while these are rather unjustified jabs in the style of "the crowd says it's crap, so I say it too". We will see what reflection society will have apart from traditional Bond films in 2035, but by then Fifty Shades of Grey will definitely be close to being in the red numbers, if FilmBooster and the internet as we know it today still exist at all.
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I didn't have any preconceptions and I thought that it couldn't be as bad as they say. But it was. Two hours of shallow boredom revolving around a theme that tells me absolutely nothing and after watching it hasn't started to say anything and won't start to, plus a rather unsympathetic dummy in the lead role and his handsome, but extremely bloodless partner. However, on the other hand, I understand that Fifty Shades has found its audience and will continue to do so, because many people seem to crave such adventures. So please, go ahead, I won't disturb you in this game room.
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A film with no plot, no emotion, and no attempt to evoke sympathy for characters that are never plunged into their controversial intimate relationship deeper than the writing of a superficial sexual contract, and only fool around a few times in a cool luxury mansion without any hint of an erotic atmosphere. This should have been given to Stanley Kubrick, whose Eyes Wide Shut, with its creative work with mise-en-scène and precise direction of the "horny" actors, kicks this pointless bullshit right in the ass. A pointless film without a single memorable scene or creative visual idea that would at least somehow spice up and highlight the routine action on the screen. Two stars solely for Dakota, whose acting is believable, and for two nicely done erotic scenes, which, if nothing else, at least aptly characterised the entire formal level of the film: something between an attempted artistic look at NOTHING and a superficial presentation of SOMETHING, which is only marginally glimpsed and will catch on at most as a useful tool for students at a film high school. 40%
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It's better than its reputation (and definitely better than the book), but it's not good enough to make it worthwhile. However, there will definitely be two more films, because it’s going to make a lot of money.
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I'll admit right at the beginning that I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey in the most ironic mood, because I thought it would be a good idea not to have a good time on Friday the 13th, and this film literally called for it, starting from what I heard from people who had read the book, to the numerous ads everywhere, to the first reviews here, all of which piqued my curiosity even more. I honestly expected this film to be much worse. In terms of the script, it was absolutely mismanaged. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I haven't read the book, so I don't know how things work there, but I had to laugh at some of the actors' statements, even if the scene in question was probably meant to be taken seriously, which it really wasn't. This impossible to ignore shortcoming was balanced, on the other hand, by a really great soundtrack – “Love Me Like You Do” by Ellie Goulding played in my ears daily for at least a week before the premiere. At times it reminded me of a bad Twilight parody, which is actually a parody in itself, so let's call it a meta-parody. Nevertheless, I don't want to give it a Boo! rating, because there were several funny scenes, the music was perfect, and it wasn't actually as mindlessly erotic as one would expect. In short, a film that will earn its money at least through advertising and various promotional items, but will still draw lots viewers (at least female) to the cinemas, so despite its obvious mediocrity, this film will soon see a sequel.
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A film obviously made for small-town American housewives, ideally from religious families. I’m not sure who else would be surprised by terms like bondage or spanking, and I certainly don't think there’s anyone who needs to be whipped in order to realize that it hurts. Since the film is clearly aimed primarily at women, I did a quick survey among the women I know, which resulted in two distinct groups. The first one includes women who share my opinion, the second one are those who would give it a 5 because Jamie Dornan was in it. Sad, but that’s the way it is.
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This is really terrible. Such unbelievable characters, and such a stupid story that thinks it's shocking but never really goes to extremes. For me, this is simply a pitiful attempt that plays on emotions and the desires of female viewers/readers, and unfortunately, it works in that aspect. Great in terms of marketing, terrible as a cinematic work.
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I waited a few years before I decided to see Fifty Shades of Grey, and I can't help but mention that I absolutely do not understand the general criticism that accompanies the film. It's not anything groundbreaking, but I wouldn't say I'm collapsing from how stupid it is, definitely not. In addition, I have absolutely no complaints about the music, the soundtrack is really good. Otherwise, it is basically a romantic story underlined by rather tasteful eroticism dealing with a love relationship that is doomed to an early demise. I admit that Jamie Dornan was a big attraction for me, mainly because of his great performance in the series The Fall. Here, I'm not disappointed with his portrayal of Christian Grey, he's even typecast for the role, but he's just not my favorite serial killer. (65%)
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