Fifty Shades Darker opens with a promise. Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan, stands before his ex-fiancée and tells her he has changed. He has learned to love. The film then spends the next hour and forty minutes proving that promise wrong. This is a sequel that trades depth for spectacle, and spectacle that mostly fails to entertain.
The plot follows Christian and Ana Steele, played by Dakota Johnson, as their relationship moves from the bedroom to the boardroom. Christian’s family business, Grey Global Holdings, is failing, and his father, played by Oliver Platt, is demanding control. Ana, meanwhile, is trying to keep her job at Seattle Publishing while navigating the fallout of her public breakup with Christian. The film wants to be about power, control, and the cost of love, but it keeps getting sidetracked by its own need for more sex.
Trailer, via Fifty Shades.
Christian’s Father and the Family Business
The central conflict is supposed to be the battle for Grey Global Holdings. Christian’s father wants the company back, and Christian is desperate to hold onto it. The film tries to build tension around this, but the stakes feel hollow. The boardroom scenes are meant to be tense, but they play out like a corporate version of a soap opera. The dialogue is full of vague threats and empty promises.
Oliver Platt plays Christian’s father with a sneer that never quite lands. His scenes are meant to be menacing, but they come off as cartoonish. The film wants you to fear him, but you end up laughing at him instead. The threat to the company is supposed to drive the plot forward, but it mostly serves as a way to get Christian and Ana back together after a breakup that feels rushed and poorly executed.
“I’ve changed,” Christian says at the beginning of the film. “I have learned to love.”
That line is the thesis statement for the whole movie. It sets up a character arc that never really happens. Christian spends the film acting like a man who has changed, but his behavior tells a different story. He is still controlling, still manipulative, and still unable to let Ana make her own decisions. The film wants you to believe he is better, but the evidence on screen says otherwise.
Ana’s Job at Seattle Publishing
Ana’s professional life is meant to ground the story in reality. She works at Seattle Publishing, and her boss, Kate, played by Jennifer Ehle, is a mentor figure who supports her. The film tries to show that Ana can succeed on her own terms, but it keeps undercutting that message. Her boss is supportive, but the film also shows Ana being sidelined and undermined by men who don’t take her seriously.
The workplace scenes are some of the film’s best, but they are also some of its most frustrating. Ana is smart, capable, and ambitious, but the film keeps putting obstacles in her path. She gets passed over for promotions, dismissed by colleagues, and told she doesn’t belong. The message is clear: a woman can succeed, but only if she conforms to the expectations of those around her. That is a powerful idea, but the film never quite commits to it.
The Breakup and Its Aftermath
The middle of the film is dedicated to the fallout of Christian and Ana’s breakup. They argue, they fight, and they eventually reconcile. The problem is that the breakup feels forced. The film spends too much time showing them apart and not enough time exploring why they broke up in the first place. The reasons are vague, and the reconciliation comes too easily.
Dakota Johnson carries the film with a performance that is both compelling and exhausting. She plays Ana as determined, intelligent, and deeply wounded. Her scenes are the ones that work, but even they are hampered by a script that doesn’t give her much to say. She is constantly reacting to things happening to her rather than driving the action herself. The film wants you to root for her, but it keeps giving her weak moments.
Jamie Dornan’s performance is less successful. He plays Christian as brooding and intense, but the intensity often tips into melodrama. His scenes are full of moody lighting and whispered threats, but they lack the weight they should have. He is good at playing angry, but he is not good at playing vulnerable. The film asks him to show growth, but he never quite delivers it.
The Sex Scenes and Their Limits
The sex scenes are the reason people come to this movie, and they are the reason people leave disappointed. The film is rated R, and it pushes the boundaries of that rating. There are scenes of bondage, whipping, and other forms of BDSM play. The film is not subtle about these scenes, and it is not particularly tasteful either.
The problem is not the content itself. The problem is the execution. The scenes are choreographed to look erotic, but they feel mechanical. The camera lingers on bodies and objects, but it never captures the intimacy of the moment. The characters are not present in their own skin; they are performing for the audience. That is a failure of direction, not a failure of material.
The film also includes a scene that is meant to be shocking. It involves Christian’s father and a woman named Elena, played by Kim Basinger. The scene is supposed to be a turning point, but it feels tacked on. It is a moment of revelation, but it is not earned. The film sets up a mystery about Elena’s past, but it never fully explains it. The result is a scene that feels unfinished, like a director forgot to put the final pieces in place.
Kim Basinger’s Elena
Kim Basinger plays Elena Lincoln, Christian’s former mentor and a woman who holds a grudge against him. Her presence is meant to complicate the story, but it doesn’t. She is a villain with no clear motive, and her scenes are filled with vague threats and shadowy whispers. The film wants you to fear her, but it never gives you a reason to understand her. She is a plot device, not a character.
Basinger is talented, and she brings a presence to the role, but the material is thin. Her scenes are meant to be ominous, but they come across as silly. The film wants you to see her as dangerous, but you just see a woman who is angry. The anger is understandable, but the film never explores what she is angry about. She is a symbol of Christian’s past, but she is not a person with her own story.
The Soundtrack and Its Role
The music in Fifty Shades Darker is a mixed bag. The score is forgettable, and the licensed tracks are mostly bland pop songs. The film tries to use music to heighten emotion, but it often misses. The sex scenes are accompanied by soft piano ballads, but they don’t add anything. The film is trying to make the scenes feel romantic, but they feel hollow instead.
There are a few moments where the music works. A slow song plays during a tender exchange between Christian and Ana, and it lands. These moments are rare, but they are effective. The film knows how to use music when it wants to, but it doesn’t know when to stop. The result is a soundtrack that is more background noise than narrative tool.
The Film’s Technical Craft
The technical aspects of Fifty Shades Darker are competent, but they are not exceptional. The cinematography is dark and moody, with lots of shadows and low lighting. The production design is lavish, with expensive locations and opulent sets. The costumes are stylish, and the editing is smooth. None of this elevates the film beyond its material.
The direction is the weakest link. The film is directed by James Foley, and his style is theatrical and heavy-handed. He uses wide shots and close-ups to create a sense of intimacy, but the intimacy never arrives. The film looks glossy, but it feels cold. The performances are buried under layers of lighting and framing. The actors are doing their best, but the direction is not helping them.
A Tale of Two Performances
The film is at its best when Dakota Johnson is on screen and at its worst when Jamie Dornan is leading the scene. Johnson is the engine that drives the story forward, while Dornan is the anchor that drags it down. The chemistry between them is real, but it is often undercut by the script. They have scenes together that crackle with energy, but they are surrounded by scenes that sputter and die.
Johnson’s performance is a masterclass in understated intensity. She plays Ana as a woman who is scared, angry, and determined all at once. Her eyes convey more than her lines ever do. She is a performer who can make a quiet moment feel electric, and she does it again and again in this film. The problem is that the script doesn’t give her enough to work with. She is constantly reacting to things that happen to her, and that limits her range.
Dornan’s performance is a different story. He plays Christian as a brooding, intense man who is constantly on edge. His scenes are full of moody lighting and whispered threats, but they lack the weight they should have. He is good at playing angry, but he is not good at playing vulnerable. The film wants you to see Christian as a man who has changed, but Dornan never quite delivers that transformation. The result is a performance that is compelling in flashes but exhausting in stretches.
The Final Verdict
Fifty Shades Darker is a disappointment. It is a sequel that should have built on the strengths of the first film, but it instead chose to repeat its mistakes. The film is full of wasted potential. It has a talented cast, a strong premise, and a loyal audience, but it squanders all of them. The result is a film that is neither satisfying nor respectable.
The film’s biggest failure is its inability to commit to its own ideas. It wants to be a drama about power and control, but it keeps getting sidetracked by its own need for more sex. It wants to be a romance about two people falling in love, but it keeps undermining that romance with its own cynicism. It wants to be a thriller about a family business in crisis, but it keeps letting the tension deflate. The film is caught between genres and styles, and it never finds its footing.
The film is also a failure of tone. It tries to be serious, but it keeps slipping into camp. The scenes of Christian and Ana together are supposed to be intimate, but they often feel like a parody of intimacy. The scenes of Christian’s father are supposed to be menacing, but they often feel like a parody of menace. The film is full of moments that are unintentionally funny, and that is a problem for a film that is trying to be taken seriously.
The film’s most damning failure is its treatment of its female characters. The women in this film are constantly being controlled, manipulated, and underestimated. They are strong in theory, but they are weak in practice. The film wants you to see them as empowered, but it keeps showing them as powerless. The message is clear: a woman can succeed, but only if she conforms to the expectations of those around her. That is a powerful idea, but the film never quite commits to it.
The film is not without its moments. There are scenes of genuine tension, moments of real tenderness, and performances that are genuinely compelling. But these moments are islands in a sea of mediocrity. They are bright spots, but they are not enough to save the film. The film is a reminder of what a good romance film can be, and a warning of what a bad one looks like.
The film is a failure of ambition. It is a film that wanted to be more than it was, and it fell short. It is a film that had everything it needed to succeed, and it still failed. It is a film that will be remembered as a footnote in the careers of its cast, and as a cautionary tale for filmmakers who think that spectacle is a substitute for substance.
Fifty Shades Darker is a sequel that should have been better. It is a film that had a chance to be great, and it missed that chance. It is a film that will be forgotten quickly, and deservedly so. It is a film that is not worth your time, and it is a film that is not worth your money. It is a film that should be left in the past, where it belongs.
| Scene | Length | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| Opening argument with ex-fiancée | Short | Serious |
| Boardroom confrontation | Long | Muddled |
| Workplace scenes at Seattle Publishing | Medium | Tense |
| Breakup scenes | Medium | Forced |
| Sex scenes | Long | Mechanical |
| Elena’s reveal | Short | Unearned |
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