I will see you now, Mr. Grey.

The movie I have been waiting for what seems like forever finally came out today and I could not have been happier to see the first session at my local cinema. Fifty Shades of Grey was finally made into a movie!

Starring Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey himself and Dakota Johnson as the most boring character in the world, Anastasia Steele, the film follows the first novel of the Fifty Shades series, documenting their first meeting along with their interesting business agreement and other exciting ventures. As someone who has the entire series, as well as being a fond admirer of Mr. Grey, I had big expectations to live up to. How did the movie fare?

Surrender yourself to this film. See what I did there?

Well, I’d just like to say that I was not disappointed. The film did the story pretty well and the events in the novel were captured greatly; it took me back to when I was reading the novel and it was pretty much exactly how I pictured it. The problem that most movies face that are based off books are inconsistencies and staying true to the book, however I feel as if this movie captured the book pretty well with no real noticeable mistakes made.

My issue with Jamie Dornan heading into this movie was that he looked too friendly to play Christian Grey. Jamie is a handsome young gentleman who seems very approachable and charming, while Christian Grey is dark and brooding and is meant to intimidate you right down to your core. Dornan wasn’t my first choice for Christian at all. In saying that, he played his role pretty well, and I found him to be a good Christian. Sure, there’s always room for improvement but I think he took the ball and ran with it and I commend him for his performance.

Dakota Johnson, however, was quite underwhelming in her role, and I can’t tell whether it’s because her acting skills leave little to be desired, or Anastasia is that boring of a character that putting in no effort is exactly the way to go. She showed some signs of fire when playing the “cheeky Ana” but other than that, her acting did absolutely nothing for me. And she also needs to invest in some nice underwear. Those saggy whites gotta go. Girl bye.

One of the biggest talking points of this film was “how are they going to make this movie and not turn it into a porno?” Well, I think they did well in that aspect also. The sex scenes were quite steamy and there was some chemistry evident between the two main characters. The way the cameras changed and the different angles used in the sex scenes concealed everything they wanted to conceal and it was done in a tasteful way that made it less porno and more “movie that happens to have sex in it”. Some of the bits were quite surprising and even startled me, someone who admittedly has an open mind to almost everything. There was one bit where I was sitting there watching them getting at it and then suddenly there was a quick shot of Dornan’s wang, and I was like “Oh good golly, where did that come from?”

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 7/10
Casting and acting: 6.5/10
Experience: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10

For those who have read the novel, and for those of you who haven’t but have a curiosity about Fifty Shades, I recommend this film to be watched as soon as you have the pennies to do so. It was a good watch and I found myself crying at one point (don’t ask why). There’s always room for improvement but I wasn’t disappointed… well besides the ending, but let’s not get into that.

– by The Black Widow