“The movie was so disappointing.” This is the reaction I got from most people who saw Fifty Shades of Grey before me. When I finally sat through the two hour-long affair, I realized that they were right.
The problem with that is, though, is that people will always find a movie remake of a book disappointing.
With the movie coming out on Valentine’s Day, it made a big splash. For the people that dragged their S.O.’s out to see the movie with them, had a Galentine’s date to watch it, or took a trip to see it alone because they were bored while their couple friends were out on dates—the timing was perfect.
So there were a few things that made the movie odd:
They stuck exactly to the book. Most of us that read the book before watching something are usually disappointed when the movie or show doesn’t stick to the book at all (Pretty Little Liars, anyone?). Fifty Shades might have stuck a little too close to the book though. The dialogue, the scenes…they were all too literal. I walked out wondering if they even hired a script-writer. The reason this didn’t work was because they obviously couldn’t have worked in Ana and her ever-present inner goddess into the movie or it would’ve seemed something out of a Lizzie McGuire episode so the movie ended up as a ton of scenes cutting quickly, seeming like almost a collage of extremely short scenes. If Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan are good actors, I never would’ve been able to tell because of all of the cuts.
That was the other thing, the actors chosen to play the parts. As I read the books, I imagined much different faces acting out the parts from Christian all the way to José, who left me very confused because he looked more like the 31-year-old that he is rather than a junior in college. But realistically, who’s complaining about seeing Jamie Dornan in all of his beauty, right?
Now to the nitty-gritty parts of the movie—the sex scenes. I’m sure everyone wondered how the movie would be able to incorporate the vivid scenes Ana’s inner goddess provides commentary on. And personally, I think they did a pretty good job with this. I think the only mistake the producers made here was not putting more in. When it comes down to it, Fifty Shades is a book about Ana’s sexuality and her exploring it with Christian in a way that she didn’t think would happen. But by making the movie rated R, they couldn’t include some parts that I’m sure viewers expected and that were large parts of the novel. Making the movie NC 17 would’ve attracted the same crowd of viewers but would’ve allowed for the movie to get much more intense than it did, because let’s be real—what 16-year-old is going to ask their parents to take them to Fifty Shades?
I have another problem with the way people approach Fifty Shades. They’re constantly hating on E.L. James, and yes she is a dorky woman who wrote Twilight fan fiction online for fun, but guess what? Her current net worth is upwards of $80 million. And I don’t know about you guys, but if being my nerdy self and writing out my fantasies made me rich, I would be a happy woman, no matter who was dumping on my writing skills. That’s not to say that I don’t agree that her writing sucks, which it did, but she’s still making about $150K a day from that sucky writing that people keep buying and reading. Instead of thinking of her as some crappy writer, I think people should think of her as an inspiration. She wrote down her weird Bella and Edward fantasies and made them into a multi-million dollar reality, and for that she’s a genius.
When it comes down to it, watch the movie, especially if you spent the time to read the book. But I wouldn’t blame you if you waited until you could Google a version of the movie to play online.