Fifty Shades of Grey arrived in 2015 with a tagline that promised command and a marketing campaign that promised heat. What the film actually delivers is a 125-minute drama about a contract.
Sam Taylor-Johnson directed from a screenplay by Kelly Marcel, working from E. L. James’ 2011 novel. Dakota Johnson plays Anastasia Steele, a 21-year-old English literature major at Washington State University Vancouver. Jamie Dornan plays Christian Grey, a 27-year-old billionaire and CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. The film premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on February 11, 2015.
The premise is a substitution. Kate Kavanagh, Ana’s roommate, catches a cold and cannot conduct an interview for the college newspaper. Ana takes her place. She stumbles through the meeting at Christian’s Seattle headquarters. He is that year’s WSU commencement speaker. He takes an interest. She takes one back.
Mr. Grey will see you now.
Trailer, via Fifty Shades.
A Helicopter and a Non-Disclosure Agreement
The courtship that follows is a series of transactions dressed as romance. Christian visits the hardware store where Ana works and offers a photo shoot for the article. He asks her to coffee, then leaves abruptly when she calls herself a romantic, telling her he is not the man for her. He sends her first edition copies of two Thomas Hardy novels, including Tess of the d’Urbervilles, with a card quoting the book on the dangers of relationships.
At a bar after graduation, Ana drinks too much, calls Christian to say she is returning the books, and berates him. He arrives as her friend José Rodriguez tries to kiss her against her will. She throws up and passes out. She wakes in his hotel room, relieved nothing sexual happened.
Then: a kiss in an elevator, a ride in his helicopter, and a relationship with paperwork attached. Christian asks her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He explains he is a dominant who engages in sexual bondage relationships. The film’s central negotiation is not whether Ana wants him. It is what she will sign.
Dakota Johnson Does the Work
Johnson is the reason to watch. She plays Ana’s clumsiness at the interview and her drunken phone call without begging for sympathy, and she holds the film’s quieter scenes — the morning after, the elevator — with a face that keeps thinking. Dornan has the harder job and the thinner material. Christian is written as a set of appetites and a backstory, and Dornan plays the surface: the suits, the stillness, the controlled voice. The script rarely lets him be anything else.
The supporting cast is crowded and mostly decorative. Jennifer Ehle plays Carla, Ana’s mother. Marcia Gay Harden plays Dr. Grace Trevelyan-Grey, Christian’s adoptive mother. Eloise Mumford is Kate. Luke Grimes is Elliot Grey, Christian’s adopted older brother. Rita Ora is Mia Grey. Max Martini is Jason Taylor, Christian’s bodyguard and head of security. Callum Keith Rennie is Ray Steele, Ana’s father. Victor Rasuk is José.
The Casting That Almost Was
The role of Christian Grey nearly went elsewhere. Charlie Hunnam was originally cast and left the film because of schedule conflicts. Bret Easton Ellis said Robert Pattinson had been James’ first choice, but James felt casting Pattinson and his Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart would be “weird.” Ian Somerhalder and Chace Crawford both expressed interest. The studio originally wanted Ryan Gosling, who was not interested. Garrett Hedlund was considered but could not connect with the character. Stephen Amell said he would not have wanted the role because “I actually didn’t find him to be that interesting.”
The short list for Anastasia included Alicia Vikander, Imogen Poots, Elizabeth Olsen, Shailene Woodley, and Felicity Jones. Emilia Clarke was offered the part and turned it down because of the nudity required. Taylor-Johnson gave every actress who auditioned for Ana four pages of a monologue from Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.
Taylor-Johnson cited 9½ Weeks (1986), Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) as her inspirations. Development began in March 2012, when Universal and Focus Features secured the rights to the trilogy after a bidding war. Joe Wright, Patty Jenkins, Bill Condon, Bennett Miller, and Steven Soderbergh were among the directors attached before Taylor-Johnson was confirmed in June 2013. Principal photography ran from December 2013 to February 2014, with reshoots involving Dornan and Johnson in Vancouver during the week of October 2014. Danny Elfman composed the score.
What the Film Refuses to Say
Here is the problem. Fifty Shades of Grey is a film about a contract that will not commit to a position on the contract. The non-disclosure agreement, the negotiated limits, the dominant’s rules — these are the actual subject, and the film treats them as set dressing for a romance it also wants to be. It cannot decide whether Christian is a study or a fantasy, so it plays him as both and lands on neither.
The inspirations Taylor-Johnson names are films with a point of view about desire. Last Tango in Paris is not coy. 9½ Weeks is not confused about what it is selling. This film is coy and confused at once, which is a harder trick than it sounds and a worse one to watch. The runtime is 125 minutes, and the negotiation scenes — the ones with real tension in them — are the shortest.
What matters here is Johnson. She is the only person in the film playing a person rather than a premise, and the sequel machinery that followed had her to thank for whatever goodwill it inherited. What is noise is the casting churn, the bidding war, the reshoots. None of it reaches the screen. The screen has a helicopter, a contract, and two actors asked to generate heat from a script that keeps handing them paperwork.
The Numbers
- Release: 2015; premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, February 11, 2015
- Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
- Screenwriter: Kelly Marcel, from E. L. James’ 2011 novel
- Runtime: 125 minutes
- Genres: Drama, Romance, Thriller
- Score: 4.6 of 10
The film is based on a book that sold because readers filled in what the prose left out. The adaptation’s mistake is assuming the audience will do that work again. It will not. A film that asks you to sign on the dotted line has to tell you what you are signing. Fifty Shades of Grey never does.
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