50 Shades of Who?

It’s the movie that we’re all talking about. The movie that was so anticipated since the book by E.L.James first came out. The movie that we expected to blow our minds just like the book. It’s always difficult to convert a book into a decent movie because one’s imagination runs much deeper than what we are shown on a screen. In this case, the movie was just too literal compared to the book.

Sitting down to watch the movie, with the grey clouds rolling into one appearing on the screen, I was expecting a dark, hungry, crazy man (call it pathetic fallacy if you will) with a mind that’s so unpredictable we question ‘why?’ And a young girl who had this undiscovered inner sex-drive waiting to be unleashed by the infamous Mr Grey.

Instead, what I learned was that Anna is your average ‘girl next door’ who has a banger for a car and a flip-up phone with a shy personality – sound familiar? Probably because it’s the same in every Rom-Com movie.

While Jamie Dornan is easy on the eye, he was too easy that he was perfect and definitely not 50 Shades of messed up. Christian Grey, in the book, is a dominant, control freak who is ‘50 shades of f***ed up’.

While we were all patiently waiting to see Mr Grey’s erratic side, we couldn’t all help but laugh at the two times he said f-word. The cinema was filled with people of all different ages and in that moment we all thought the same thing- “Jamie Dornan, that language just does not suit you.”

What doesn’t make Jamie Dornan the Christian Grey in the book is probably not his fault. The directing, which was done by Sam Taylor-Johnson, decided to leave one of the most crazy characteristics of Mr Grey’s personality out – namely how he makes Anna eat all the time.

What’s even worse is that, in the movie, there is only one reference to how Mr Grey insists on making Anna eat, about a muffin, and then it was never brought up again. It was like they just stuck it in there because he forgot his lines. What about all the other times Mr Grey insists on making Anna eat?

For example, on page 103 of the book, he says “We’ll go through [the rules] once we’ve eaten. Food.” “How can I eat now? I’m not really hungry”, I [Anna] whisper. “You will eat”, he [Mr. Grey] says simply.

“Dominating Christian, it all becomes clear” she thinks. It may have been a little bit clearer to us too that he was so dominating if this was added in the movie.

Last week an Australian magazine, NW, had an inside source explaining what Jamie Dornan had to say about his film role. The inside source was quoted saying, “Jamie does not think his performance was bad – instead he blames Dakota and says it wasn’t possible to have any chemistry with her. He says Dakota gave him nothing to work with.”

This is not hard to believe, actually. While we were all waiting for something interesting to happen, I could hear huffs and puffs of annoyance on either side of me.

People constantly moving around in their chair to find a comfortable position that they could stick to because they didn’t know how much longer was left of the film. With Dakota being the main character, the audience were expecting more. They needed more to get a sense of her personality.

April Keogh, 19, who attends DIT Aungier Street said, “I didn’t think it lived up to anyone’s expectations. Everyone was talking about the movie and how it could be the movie of the year and because of that I had really high expectations for it. It could have been better with different actors.”

On a lighter note, many people enjoyed the film and said it was exactly like the book. Denise McNeill, 49, from Palmerstown in Dublin says, “If you don’t like the book, you definitely won’t like the film. The storyline isn’t riveting and you won’t be on the edge of your seat but it is what it claims to be; a dark but romantic look at a guy’s interest in sadistic sex with an innocent young girl.”

“It’s good for what it is and I definitely would go to see the next one. I liked the books and the movie was the exact same. Also looking at a beautiful muscular man for two hours is not hard!”