Film Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

‘Fifty Shades’ is caught between a book and a hard place.

Must.  Stare.  To.  Create.  Intense.  Chemistry!
Must. Stare. To. Create. Intense. Chemistry!

I sort of feel sorry for Francine Maisler, the casting director of Fifty Shades of Grey.  Francine was given an impossible task — to cast the role of Christian Grey with an actor whose every physical characteristic would accurately reflect the subjective sexual fantasies of millions of female (and male) readers.  100 million, to be more exact.  Once a Grey was found, the rest should’ve fallen more easily into place.  To the filmmakers credit, and to Maisler’s, the casting job is almost as good as it could’ve been.  Jamie Dornan makes for a sexy steely-eyed (see what I did there?) Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson makes for a very strong pretty-yet-plain Anastasia Steele.  Oh, but there’s one problem…they have to have great chemistry together in order to pull it off.  Oops.  Fifty Shades of Grey is not as bad as you may think or hope, and if you’re brave enough to refrain from poking fun of it to look cool, it’s not hard to notice some strong cinematic merits and a strong yet simply central plot with a lot of interesting potential.  Sadly, the lack of actor chemistry and the screenwriter’s loyalty to the book’s popularity sours the overall impact of the film, which, despite its effectiveness in pushing the boundaries of sex in a rated R film, should’ve had a stronger impact.

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