Fifty Shades of Grey: To watch or not to watch?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of months, you’ve probably already seen the semi-steamy trailers and spin offs to the film adaptation of E.L. James’s ‘adult content’ novel, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Starring Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey) and Dakota Johnson (Anastasia Steele), the film basically follows Ana, a naive undergraduate who goes to interview, alpha male, Mr Grey which sparked off the slew of flirtatious quips and lip biting, courtesy of Ana.

Well, we caught the premiere yesterday and boy oh boy. Don’t know if you need reasons but here a couple of reasons anyway why you should watch this film – whether you’ve read the books or not. And why you shouldn’t.

To Watch:

A glimpse of BDSM

Or rather Bondage and Discipline, Sadism and Masochism. While the movie doesn’t exactly depict the acts for what they are, it does show you a glimpse of the varied tools that could be used. From ceiling rails, cable ties, to hand cuffs, whips, blindfolds and rope, the film highlights what it means to be a Dominant and a Submissive in the relationship. Don’t expect too much kinkiness from it though.

Accuracy to the novel

We have to give credit where credit’s due and this will go to director, Sam Taylor-Johnson for stripping away the inane drivel found in the book. There wasn’t that cringe-inducing tampon scene either or talks about inner goddesses but for the most part, the movie kept the plot fairly accurate to the novels in terms of setting and mood. From the billionaire’s luxuriously decked out living room to the ‘red room of pain’, the details were kept impeccably similar as you hear everyone else in the cinema gleefully gasp, ‘Omg, it’s the same!’

Jamie Dornan 

Sure, there isn’t exactly much to expect from Christian Grey’s unsmiling character other than his abs, tailored suits and endless amount of stoic gazes but come on, it’s Jamie Dornan. If you listen close enough, you’ll even catch a tinge of his macho Irish accent and the guy plays the piano shirtless in the movie. Eyes of steel everyone, eyes of steel.

To not watch:

Did not live up to the ridiculous hype

When the trailers came out, everyone thought that this supposedly controversial movie was going to be filled with ridiculously steamy scenes and amorous dialogues but it barely lived up to the hot-and-bothered hype. Instead, we’d define the movie as one Twilight romance that went a slight notch higher in the sex department, without the vampires and werewolves. Still, we didn’t see the R rated aspect of it.

Painfully Draggy

Essentially, the build up to the milder than purported scenes was slow and the mediocre display of tension and emotion was more ‘okayyyyyy’ than ‘oh no, what’s going to happen now’. From Jamie’s furrowed brows and Dakota’s lip-biting vacant stares, it was easy to guess what would follow. More close ups of their eyes and lips.

So as we got to the end of the movie, a couple of whips later, all we could say was, laters, baby!

Tarandip Kaur