Fifty Shades Darker asks the audience to believe a romance can be rebuilt on three rules. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan return as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. James Foley directed. Niall Leonard wrote the screenplay from E. L. James’s 2012 novel. The film runs 118 minutes and lands in the same territory as the 2015 original, with less novelty and the same problems.
Trailer, via Fifty Shades.
Ana Steele Returns to Christian Grey
The plot picks up after Ana leaves Christian. He has nightmares about his abusive childhood. She takes a job as an assistant to Jack Hyde, an editor at Seattle Independent Publishing. Hyde’s last three assistants all quit within 18 months without notice, which the film treats as a warning and never develops. At the opening of José Rodriguez’s photography exhibit, Ana learns Christian bought every portrait of her. He agrees to her terms: “no rules, no punishments, and no more secrets.” He also tells her his birth mother was a crack-addicted sex worker.
“no rules, no punishments, and no more secrets”
That line is the whole architecture of Fifty Shades Darker. It is also the film’s central bluff. Ana sets a boundary, and the movie spends the rest of its 118 minutes arranging reasons for her to relax it.
Bella Heathcote Plays Leila Williams
A young woman who resembles Ana keeps appearing. Christian dodges the question, then explains she is Leila Williams, a former submissive. Bella Heathcote plays her. After their contract ended, Leila wanted more and he did not. She married a man who later died, had a nervous breakdown, and has been stalking him since.
Kim Basinger Arrives at Esclava
Christian then takes Ana to Esclava, a beauty salon owned by Elena Lincoln, played by Kim Basinger. Elena is a family friend, Christian’s business partner, and his former dominant, who introduced him to the BDSM lifestyle by sexually assaulting him when he was 15. Ana is furious. The scene is the only one in the film with real friction, and it works because Basinger plays Elena without apology.
A Cast Doing What It Can
Johnson remains the best thing here. She plays Ana as wary rather than passive, and the film is more watchable whenever she is allowed to push back. Dornan has the harder job. Christian is written as a man whose damage explains everything and costs him nothing, and the script gives Dornan few scenes that are not either brooding or explaining.
Eric Johnson’s Jack Hyde is a stock office predator. Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk and Max Martini return in roles that amount to furniture. Marcia Gay Harden appears as Grace Trevelyan-Grey, Christian’s adoptive mother. Rita Ora plays Mia Grey.
The Paris and Vancouver Shoot
The first film had the advantage of surprise. Fifty Shades Darker has a bigger budget’s worth of locations and no new idea. By November 2015, Foley and Leonard were hired to make both sequels, shot back-to-back in 2016. Filming began February 9, 2016, in Paris and Vancouver, and wrapped April 11, 2016. That production schedule shows. The film moves through its set pieces without letting any of them land.
Two castings never made it to screen. Tyler Hoechlin was set for Boyce Fox and Hugh Dancy for Dr. John Flynn, Christian’s psychiatrist. Neither appears in the finished film.
What Fifty Shades Darker Withholds
Their absence is not the problem. The problem is that Fifty Shades Darker keeps introducing threats — Leila, Hyde, Elena — and resolving none of them, because the third film is waiting. The film withholds, teases and defers, and asks the audience to pay for setup.
The Elena salon scene shows what the series could be if it let its women be angry instead of merely available. It does not. This is a film about a contract that never gets signed, and it plays like one.
Key Facts
– Release year: 2017
– Runtime: 118 minutes
– Director: James Foley
– Writer: Niall Leonard
– Metacritic: 33/100
– Filming began: February 9, 2016
– Filming wrapped: April 11, 2016
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
