Fifty Shades of Grey * *

Much is conveyed about this film before we even get going.  The song used in the opening credits is the Screaming Jay Hawkins classic “I Put A Spell On You”.  Good choice.  But of all the versions available none could be more bland and ineffectual than the pathetic Annie Lennox effort,  and that’s the one they chose.  But perhaps the choice is ironically appropriate, for like Lennox whining  her way through a classic song  the tragedy of this film is that it doesn’t understand it’s own subject matter.  If the book (which I haven’t read) is as equally clumsy in its celebration of BDSM as this film I am quite at a loss as to why it became so popular or why anyone would feel inspired to “give it a go”.   It’s just sad nasty and mean.  You don’t feel excited for Anastasia as she embarks on a new adventure, you just feel sorry for a naive girl getting used. It’s his desire alone  and she just bends and gives and compromises in the hope that she can win him over and have the nice normal boyfriend she wants.  How does that make BDSM exciting or inviting?  Sex games are supposed to be fair and balanced with each getting their need filled.  

Really, it’s a romance on the Mills and Boon level of reality (cartoonish), layered over with a BDSM theme that is as equally unrealistic.  In a way it is impotent.  It can’t do what it wants to do. We remain unsatisfied and disappointed with its performance.  The actors do okay with what they have to work with,  and from. But it makes you feel sorry for everyone involved: for here is a book that has sold squillions so of course they had to make a film of it. But it would have been a tough gig for the scriptwriters, director, actors as they try to make a silk purse from a sows ear.  Predictably, they prove it can’t be done.